"And don't you like to stay here?" Kathleen asked. "It seems to me a very beautiful place."
"No," said Terence; "they are very kind to me, but I think that I should like to live outside better, and I hope that I shall some time. And then, you see, if I ate anything here I could not go out to go to school, and so I could not teach them. And it is all so strange. It almost makes me cry, it is such a bother sometimes, and then they are so sorry about it themselves and I am so sorry for them, and it almost makes me laugh sometimes, because they can never learn anything. You will see. I think it is time now."
Some of the men were taking away the tables. "It is time for the lesson," the King called out. Some of the other men brought in a big blackboard and set it up. Everybody stopped talking and laughing and stood near the blackboard. Terence made some lines and some letters on the board, with a piece of chalk.
"I shall have to try again," said Terence, "to prove to you the same thing that I tried to prove to you last night. But I'll try a different way, and maybe you'll see it better. Now mind, what I am to prove is this: if any triangle has two sides equal, the angles opposite those sides are also equal."
"And what difference does it make if they're equal or not?" said one of the men who stood near Kathleen.
"Be still there," the King said; "do we want to make telephones or do we not? And sure we can't make telephones without geometry. Hasn't Terence told you that?"
Terence went on: "Let ABC be any triangle in which the sides AB and AC are equal."
"How can it be any triangle, when it's only one triangle?" said another of the men.
"Keep your silly head shut," said the King. "Terence didn't say it was any triangle; he said let it be. Now will you let that triangle be, or will I come over there and make you let it be?"
The man said nothing more and Terence went on: "Now, consider this triangle as two triangles, BAC and CAB."
"How can it be two triangles," another of the men said, "when it's only one triangle?"
"Will you be still there?" the King said. "Terence doesn't say it's two triangles; he says you're to consider it. Will you consider that triangle two triangles, or will I come over there and make you consider it two triangles?"