The thought flashed across me that I might have before
me a burglar or cut-throat, some monstrous Irregular Isosceles, who,
by feigning the voice of a Circle, had obtained admission somehow
into the house, and was now preparing to stab me with his acute angle.
In a sitting-room, the absence of Fog (and the season happened
to be remarkably dry), made it difficult for me to trust to Sight
Recognition, especially at the short distance at which I was standing.
Desperate with fear, I rushed forward with an unceremonious, "You must
permit me, Sir --" and felt him. My Wife was right. There was not
the trace of an angle, not the slightest roughness or inequality:
never in my life had I met with a more perfect Circle. He remained
motionless while I walked around him, beginning from his eye
and returning to it again. Circular he was throughout,
a perfectly satisfactory Circle; there could not be a doubt of it.
Then followed a dialogue, which I will endeavour to set down as near
as I can recollect it, omitting only some of my profuse apologies--
for I was covered with shame and humiliation that I, a Square,
should have been guilty of the impertinence of feeling a Circle.
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