Page:Carroll - Euclid and His Modern Rivals.djvu/41

. I.] 'For AGH and EGB are equal because vertically opposite, and EGB is also equal to GHD (Definition 9); therefore AGH is equal to GHD; but these are alternate angles.'

Did you ever hear anything like that for calm assumption?

Min. What does the miscreant mean by 'Definition 9'?

Rhad. Oh, that's the grandest of all! You must listen to that bit too. There's a reference at the foot of the page to 'Cooley.' So I hunted up Mr. Cooley among the heaps of Geometries they've sent me—(by the way, I wonder if they've sent you the full lot? Forty-five were left in my rooms to-day, and ten of them I'd never even heard of till to-day!)—well, as I was saying, I looked up Cooley, and here's the Definition.

Reads.

'Right Lines are said to be parallel when they are equally and similarly inclined to the same right Line, or make equal angles with it towards the same side.'

Min. That is very soothing. So far as I can make it out, Mr. Cooley quietly assumes that a Pair of Lines, which make equal angles with one Line, do so with all Lines. He might just as well say that a young lady, who was inclined to one young man, was 'equally and similarly inclined' to all young men!

Rhad. She might 'make equal angling' with them all, anyhow. But, seriously, what are we to do with Cooley?

Min. (thoughtfully) Well, if we had him in the Schools, I think we should pluck him.