The Professor: Avignon 



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 gen- 

 tler 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 com- 

 pass, and the drawing-pen: a deft-fingered num- 

 skull, in short. 



With the aid of a system of tangents of which 

 I first showed him the rule and the method of con- 

 struction, my artist has obtained the ordinary cy- 

 cloid, followed by the interior and the exterior epi- 

 cycloid, and, lastly, the same curves both length- 

 ened and shortened. His drawings are admirable 

 Spiders' webs, encircling 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 cal- 

 culus. 



I submit the geometrical masterpieces to my 

 chief-inspector, who is himself said to be smitten 

 with geometry. I modestly describe the method of 

 construction, I call his attention to the fine deduc- 

 tions which the drawing enables one to make. It 

 is labour lost: he gives but a heedless glance at my 

 sheets and flings each on the table as I hand it to 

 him. 



" Alas ! " said I to myself. " There is a storm 

 brewing ; the cycloid won't save you ; it's your turn 

 for a bite from the Crocodile ! " 



187 



