"Yes," said Dick, "and we are getting too big, anyhow, to care for such things."
And it was remarked in the family that the boys' old attachment to cake waned about the time of the private tea party in Tom Fleming's room.
Here is a puzzle that will interest the boys and girls that are far enough advanced to know something of astronomy. The wee tots will not be able to make much out of it, for the stars and the astronomers seem to have been given hard names from the time of Tycho Brahe down to Sir John Herschel. There will be a large number of bright minds among the readers of Young People, however, whose exploits on examination days will make it an easy matter for them to transpose the "pi" into the right word every time. "Pi," it may be stated for the benefit of those who are not familiar with the term, is the name that printers give to type that somebody has knocked into complete disorder after it was all nicely set up and ready for printing.
To begin with, we have a little story in verse, containing twenty-two names. The stars in each line must be replaced by appropriate letters. When these letters are mixed together they will form the "pi." Then by transposing them we obtain the required name of planet, astronomer, or cluster. No other letters can be used. Each verse has but one large initial, every line of a verse beginning with the same letter. The small stars around the acrostic initials have no bearing on the puzzle whatever.
PROLOGUE.
First line, a planet; second line, two planets; third line, a term used in connection with the moon; fourth line, another term used in connection with the movements of the moon.