'a=10.' Now how do you get around a thing like that? And it's right here in plain sight in the same book; and yet you say the book has some sense to it! If it has, just explain that,—unless it's a secret that only a few are allowed to know," and he snapped on the book cover again.
I only looked at him. How could I explain it to him when he didn't know the first thing about it, to begin with?
"You can't," he said, and tossed the book back to me. "It's full of things like that," he added.
"But," I said, "when you study it, it's all plain, and you find that it isn't contradictory at all."
"Well then, why don't you explain it?"
"I couldn't make you understand, until you've studied it."
"Oh!" said Bob, "you know such a lot more than I do, that you can't reach down to my level to make me understand?"
I was never so aggravated at Bob before in my life; and yet all the time I had the feeling as if all this had happened before, and I was living it over again; and it made me feel queer.
Bob went on, "What's the use of me studying a thing that I can see at a glance hasn't any rea-
