“What!” shouted the Shark.
Varley glanced at him questioningly. “I beg your pardon?” he said with a touch of formality.
The Shark drew a long breath. “An oblong sphere!” he repeated slowly. “Jee-whippiter!”
Again it was Sam’s duty to explain. “Don’t let the Shark bother you. He means well, but he’s a bug on mathematics—and cones, and circles, and cubes, and spheres, and—er—er—and all that sort of thing. But he’s harmless.”
Once more Varley’s laugh saved the situation. “I understand. And he’s right, at that. What I meant was, that the thing was egg-shaped—almost, but not quite. And that little difference in shape, the inventor figured, was just what would make it a perpetual motion machine, that would keep going forever, once you started it. Of course, it didn’t work. But I say!”—he was looking straight at the Shark—“I say! If you’re up in the ‘math’ I envy you. It’s my stumbling-block—gets me every time.”
“Umph!” said the Shark non-committally. In his experience the world was strangely crowded with beings woefully deficient in the mathematical sense. He was learning to make allowances for their shortcomings. The visitor, by frank confession of incapacity, won a degree of toleration, if not of approval.
“Yes; it gets me every time,” Varley went on. “I’ve had half a notion to see if I couldn’t go into the senior class at your high school, just to brush up on the mathematical review—maybe I shall yet. But first I want to get better acquainted with the town and the people. That’s why I dropped in on your crowd. And now that I’ve said ‘Howdy,’ I’ll move along.”
“Oh, don’t be in a hurry,” said Sam politely.
For the first time the blackboard, with its boldly chalked inscription, caught Varley’s eye.
“Hullo! What’s that? Safety First Club? Say, that’s a funny name for a lot of boys to pick out!”