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."
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