[Illustration: SCHOLAR-HUNTING: THE PURSUED]
“_How_ many years ago did you say?” I asked, much interested in the prospect of at last learning _some_ definite fact in his history.
[Illustration: SCHOLAR-HUNTING: THE PURSUERS]
“_Many_ years ago,” he replied. “The scene at the Railway-Station had been (so they told me) one of wild excitement. Eight or nine Heads of Colleges had assembled at the gates (no one was allowed inside), and the Station-Master had drawn a line on the pavement, and insisted on their all standing behind it. The gates were flung open! The young man darted through them, and fled like lightning down the street, while the Heads of Colleges actually _yelled_ with excitement on catching sight of him! The Proctor gave the word, in the old statutory form, ‘_Semel!_ _Bis!_ _Ter!_ _Currite!_’, and the Hunt began! Oh, it was a fine sight, believe me! At the first corner he dropped his Greek Lexicon: further on, his railway-rug: then various small articles: then his umbrella: lastly, what I suppose he prized most, his hand-bag: but the game was up: the spherical Principal of—of——”
“—of _one_ of the Colleges,” he resumed, “had put into operation the Theory—his own discovery—of Accelerated Velocity, and captured him just opposite to where I stood. I shall never forget that wild breathless struggle! But it was soon over. Once in those great bony hands, escape was impossible!”
“May I ask why you speak of him as the ‘_spherical_’ Principal?” I said.
“The epithet referred to his _shape_, which was a perfect _sphere_. You are aware that a bullet, another instance of a perfect sphere, when falling in a perfectly straight line, moves with Accelerated Velocity?”
“Well, my spherical friend (as I am proud to call him) set himself to investigate the _causes_ of this. He found them to be _three_. One; that it is a perfect _sphere_. Two; that it moves in a _straight line_. Three; that its direction is _not upwards_. When these three conditions are fulfilled, you get Accelerated Velocity.”
“Hardly,” I said: “if you will excuse my differing from you. Suppose we apply the theory to _horizontal_ motion. If a bullet is fired _horizontally_, it——”
“—it does _not_ move in a _straight line_,” he quietly finished my sentence for me.