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 Having made this quite clear to you, he carried on his argument by means of algebra, until he got right through algebra to the "cases" at the end of the book, and then he slid by gentle and imperceptible degrees into conic sections, where $$x$$, although you found it masquerading as the equation to the parabola, was still as much $$x$$ as ever. Then if you were not too tired to follow him, you found yourself up to the eyes in plane and spherical trigonometry, where $$x$$ again turned up in a variety of assumed characters, sometimes as "$$\cos{a}$$" sometimes as "$$\sin{\beta}$$," but generally with a $$\sqrt[2]{}$$ over it, and none the less $$x$$ on that account. This singular character then made its appearance in a quaint binomial disguise, and was eventually run to earth in the very heart of differential and integral calculus, looking less like $$x$$, but being, in point of fact, more like $$x$$ than ever. The force of his argument went to show that, do what you would, you could not stamp $$x$$ out, and therefore it was better and wiser and more straightforward to call him $$x$$ at once than to invest him with complicated sham dignities which meant nothing, and only served to bother and perplex people who met him for the first time. It's a very easy problem—anybody can do it.

Mr. Gay was, as a matter of course, engaged to be married. He loved a pretty little girl of eighteen, with soft brown eyes, and bright silky brown hair. Her name was Jessie Lightly, and she was the only daughter of Sir Caractacus Lightly, a wealthy baronet who had a large place in the neighbourhood of Ploverleigh. Sir Caractacus was a very dignified old gentleman, whose wife had died two years after Jessie's birth. A