The Life of the Fly 



o'clock strikes, the pupils go out and we are 

 left alone. I know him to be a geometrician. 

 The transcendental curve, perfectly drawn, may 

 work upon his gentler mood. I happen to 

 have in my portfolio the very thing to please 

 him. Fortune serves me well, in this special 

 circumstance. Among my boys, there is 

 one who, though a regular dunce at everything 

 else, is a first-rate hand with the square, the 

 compass and the drawing-pen : a deft-fingered 

 numskull, in short. 



With the aid of a system of tangents of 

 which I first showed him the rule and the 

 method of construction, my artist has obtained 

 the ordinary cycloid, followed by the interior 

 and the exterior epicycloid and, lastly, the 

 same curves both lengthened and shortened. 

 His drawings are admirable Spider's webs, en- 

 circling the cunning curve In their net. The 

 draughtsmanship is so accurate that it is easy 

 to deduce from it beautiful theorems, which 

 would be very laborious to work out by the 

 calculus. 



I submit the geometrical masterpieces to mv 

 chief-inspector, who is himself said to be smit- 

 ten with n;cometry. I modestly describe the 

 method of construction, I call his attention to 

 the fine deductions which the drawing enables 

 4SO 



