A Tangled Tale

This Tale originally appeared as a serial in The Monthly Packet, beginning in April, 1880. The writer's intention was to embody in each Knot (like the medicine so dexterously, but ineffectually, con-cealed in the jam of our early childhood) one or more mathematical questions "in Arithmetic, Algebra, or Geometry, as the case might be" for the amusement, and possible edification, of the fair readers of that Magazine. LEWIS CARROLL "Goblin, lead them up and down." The ruddy glow of sunset was already fading into the sombre shadows of night, when two travellers might have been observed swiftly—at a pace of six miles in the hour—descending the rugged side of a mountain; the younger bounding from crag to crag with the agility of a fawn, while his companion, whose aged limbs seemed ill at ease in the heavy chain armour habitually worn by tourists in that district, toiled on painfully at his side. As is always the case under such circumstances, the younger knight was the first to break the silence. "A goodly pace, I trow!" he exclaimed. "We sped not thus in the ascent!" "Goodly, indeed!" the other echoed with a groan. "We clomb it but at three miles in the hour."