CHAPTER XIII 



MATHEMATICAL MEMORIES: MY LITTLE 

 TABLE 



TT is time to start our analytical geometry. 

 -■- He can come now, my partner, the mathe- 

 matician : I think I shall understand what he 

 says. I have already run through my book, 

 and noticed that our subject, whose beautiful 

 precision makes work a recreation, bristles 

 with no very serious difficulties. 



We begin in my room, in front of a black- 

 board. After a few evenings, prolonged 

 into the peaceful watches of the night, I be- 

 come aware, to my great surprise, that my 

 teacher, the past master in those hiero- 

 glyphics, is really, more often than not, my 

 pupil. He does not see the combinations of 

 the abscissas and ordinates very clearly. I 

 make bold to take the chalk in hand myself, 

 to seize the rudder of our algebraical boat. I 

 comment on the book, interpret it in my own 

 fashion, expound the text, sound the reefs 

 until daylight comes and leads us to the haven 

 of the solution. Besides, the logic is so irre- 

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