APPENDIX.

= 3, "is evidently only satisfied by s = 2 ⁄ 2 , b = ½"! Old Cat believes that the assumption that a sandwich costs 1½ d. is "the only way to avoid unmanageable fractions." But why avoid them? Is there not a certain glow of triumph in taming such a fraction? "Ladies and gentlemen, the fraction now before you is one that for years defied all efforts of a refining nature: it was, in a word, hopelessly vulgar. Treating it as a circulating decimal (the treadmill of fractions) only made matters worse. As a last resource, I reduced it to its lowest terms, and extracted its square root!" Joking apart, let me thank Old Cat for some very kind words of sympathy, in reference to a correspondent (whose name I am happy to say I have now forgotten) who had found fault with me as a discourteous critic. O. V. L. is beyond my comprehension. He takes the given equations as (1) and (2): thence, by the process [(2)-(1)] deduces (rightly) equation (3) viz. s + 3 b = 3: and thence again, by the process [×33] (a hopeless mystery), deduces 3 s + 4 b = 4. I have nothing to say about it: I give it up. Sea-Breeze says "it is immaterial to the answer" (why?) "in what proportion 3 d. is divided between the sandwich and the 3 biscuits": so she assumes s = l½ d. , b = ½ d. Stanza is one of a very irregular metre. At first she (like Janet) identifies sandwiches with biscuits. She then tries two assumptions ( s = 1, b = 2 ⁄ 3 , and s = ½ b = 2 ⁄