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The Conundrums answer, and then I would wake up to be sure of it, and find it had slipped me again.

As I was leaving the office, in the evening, after thinking till my head ached without arriving at any result, I put the question to one of our clerks. I thought he might possibly know.

"No," he said, "I don't know what a lady would say if she slipped down those steps. I could make a fair guess at what a man would say, if that's any good to you." Of course it was not.

So, on my return home, I told Eliza that I had not had enough time to spare to think of the answer, and I should be glad to know where she had put the book.

"Oh, I sent that to mother!" she said. "I thought you wanted it sent."

"You might have waited until you knew whether I had finished with it. But, however, what was the answer to that silly riddle?"

"The one about St. Paul's Cathedral? That wasn't in the book at all. I made up the question out of my own head for fun." 155