So, the Doctor buckled to his task again, with renewed energy; to Euclid, Latin grammar, and fractions. Sam's good memory enabled him to make light of the grammar, and the fractions too were no great difficulty, but the Euclid was an awful trial. He couldn't make out what it was all about. He got on very well until he came nearly to the end of the first book, and then getting among the parallelogram "props," as we used to call them (may their fathers' graves be defiled!), he stuck dead. For a whole evening did he pore patiently over one of them till A B, setting to C D, crossed hands, poussetted, and whirled round "in Sahara waltz" through his throbbing head. Bed-time, but no rest! Whether he slept or not he could not tell. Who could sleep with that long-bodied, ill-tempered-looking parallelogram A H standing on the bed-clothes, and crying out, in tones loud enough to waken the house, that it never had been, nor never would be equal to the fat jolly square C K? So, in the morning, Sam woke to the consciousness that he was farther off from the solution than ever, but, having had a good cry, went into the study and tackled to it again. No good! Breakfast time, and matters much worse! That long peaked-nose vixen of a triangle A H C, which yesterday Sam had made out was equal to half the parallelogram and half the square, now had the audacity to declare that she had nothing to do with either of them; so what was to be done now? After breakfast Sam took his book and went out to his father, who was sitting smoking in the verandah. He clambered up on to his knee, and then began:-- "Father, dear, see here; can you understand this? You've got to prove, you know,--oh, dear! I've forgot that now." "Let's see," said the Major; "I am afraid this is a little above me. There's Brentwood, now, could do it; he was in the Artillery, you know, and learnt fortification, and that sort of thing. I don't think I can make much hand of it, Sam." But Sam had put his head upon his father's shoulder, and was crying bitterly. "Come, come, my old man," said the Major, "don't give way, you know; don't be beat." "I can't make it out at all," said Sam, sobbing. "I've got such a buzzing in my head with it! And if I can't do it I must stop; because I can't go on to the next till I understand this. Oh, dear me!" "Lay your head there a little, my boy, till it gets clearer; then perhaps you will be able to make it out. You may depend on it that you ought to learn it, or the good Doctor wouldn't have set it to you: never let a thing beat you, my son." So Sam cried on his father's shoulder a little, and then went in with his book; and not long after, the Doctor looked in unperceived, and saw the boy with his elbows on the table and the book before him. Even while he looked a big tear fell plump into the middle of A H; so the Doctor came quietly in and said,-- "Can't you manage it, Sam?" Sam shook his head. "Just give me hold of the book; will you, Sam?"