be just. Now, the first method as described in the Odyssey is, in fact, mechanically impossible; and I shall proceed, for your benefit, to substantiate that statement.”
“How interesting,” says Waverhouse.
“Indeed, most interesting,” adds my master.
“Let us suppose that the women are to be hanged at intervals of an equal distance, and that the rope between the two women nearest the ground stretches out horizontally, right? Now α1, α2 up to α6 become the angles between the rope and the horizon. T1, T2, and so on up to T6 represent the force exerted on each section of the rope, so that T7 = X is the force exerted on the lowest part of the rope. W is, of course, the weight of the women. So far so good. Are you with me?”
My master and Waverhouse exchange glances and say, “Yes, more or less.” I need hardly point out that the value of this “more or less” is singular to Waverhouse and my master. It could possibly have a different value for other people.
“Well, in accordance with the theory of averages as applied to the polygon, a theory with which you must of course be well acquainted, the following twelve equations can, in this particular case, be established:
T1 cos αl=T2 cos α2......(1)
T2 cos α2=T3 cos α3......(2)”
“I think that’s enough of the equations,” my master irresponsibly remarks.
“But these equations are the very essence of my lecture.” Coldmoon really seems reluctant to be parted from them.
“In that case, let’s hear those particular parts of its very essence at some other time.” Waverhouse, too, seems out of his depth.
“But if I omit the full detail of the equations, it becomes impossible to substantiate the mechanical studies to which I have devoted so much effort. . .”
“Oh, never mind that. Cut them all out,” came the cold-blooded comment of my master.
“That’s most unreasonable. However, since you insist, I will omit them.”
“That’s good,” says Waverhouse, unexpectedly clapping his hands.
“Now we come to England where, in Beowulf, we find the word ‘gallows’: that is to say ‘galga.’ It follows that hanging as a penalty must have been in use as early as the period with which the book is concerned. According to Blackstone, a convicted person who is not killed at his first hanging by reason of some fault in the rope should simply be hanged again. But, oddly enough, one finds it stated in The Vision of Piers Plowman that even a murderer should not be strung up twice. I do not know which statement is correct, but there are many melancholy instances of victims failing to be killed outright. In 1786 the authorities attempted to hang a notorious villain named Fitzgerald, but when the stool was removed, by some strange chance the rope broke. At the next attempt the rope proved so long that his legs touched ground and he again survived. In the end, at the third attempt, he was enabled to die with the help of the spectators.”
“Well, well,” says Waverhouse becoming, as was only to be expected, re-enlivened.
“A true thanatophile.” Even my master shows signs of jollity.
“There is one other interesting fact. A hanged person grows taller by about an inch. This is perfectly true. Doctors have measured it.”
“That’s a novel notion. How about it, Sneaze?” says Waverhouse turning to my master. “Try getting hanged. If you were an inch taller, you might acquire the appearance of an ordinary human being.” The reply, however, was delivered with an unexpected gravity.
“Tell me, Coldmoon, is there any chance of surviving that process of extension by one inch?”
“Absolutely none. The point is that it is the spinal cord which gets stretched in hanging. It’s more a matter of breaking than of growing taller.”
“In that case, I won’t try.” My master abandons hope.
There was still a good deal of the lecture left to deliver and Coldmoon had clearly been anxious to deal with the question of the physiological function of hanging. But Waverhouse made so many and such capriciously-phrased interjections and my master yawned so rudely and so frequently that Coldmoon finally broke off his rehearsal in mid-flow and took his leave. I cannot tell you what oratorical triumphs he achieved, still less what gestures he employed that evening, because the lecture took place miles away from me.
A few days passed uneventfully by. Then, one day about two in the afternoon, Waverhouse dropped in with his usual casual manners and looking as totally uninhibited as his own concept of the “Accidental Child.” The minute he sat down he asked abruptly, “Have you heard about Beauchamp Blowlamp and the Takanawa Incident?” He spoke excitedly, in a tone of voice appropriate to an announcement of the fall of Port Arthur.
“No, I haven’t seen him lately.” My master is his usual cheerless self.
“I’ve come today, although I’m busy, especially to inform you of the frightful blunder which Beauchamp has committed.”
“You’re exaggerating again. Indeed you’re quite impossible.”
“Impossible, never: improbable, perhaps. I must ask you to make a distinction on this point, for it affects my honor.”
“It’s the same thing,” replied my master assuming an air of provoking indifference. He is the very image of a Mr. the-late-and-sainted Natural Man.
“Last Sunday, Beauchamp went to the Sengaku Temple at Takanawa, which was silly in this cold weather, especially when to make such a visit nowadays stamps one as a country bumpkin out to see the sights.”
“But Beauchamp’s his own master. You’ve no right to stop him going.”
“True, I haven’t got the right, so let’s not bother about that. The point is that the temple yard contains a showroom displaying relics of the forty-seven ronin. Do you know it?”
“N-no.”
“You don’t? But surely you’ve been to the Temple?”
“No.”
“Well, I am surprised. No wonder you so ardently defended Beauchamp. But it’s positively shameful that a citizen of Tokyo should never have visited the Sengaku Temple.”
“One can contrive to teach without trailing out to the ends of the city.” My master grows more and more like his blessed Natural Man.
“All right. Anyway, Beauchamp was examining the relics when a married couple, Germans as it happened, entered the showroom. They began by asking him questions in Japanese, but, as you know, Beauchamp is always aching to practice his German so he naturally responded by rattling off a few words in that language. Apparently he did it rather well. Indeed, when one thinks back over the whole deplorable incident, his very fluency was the root cause of the trouble.”
“Well, what happened?” My master finally succumbs.
“The Germans pointed out a gold-lacquered pill-box which had belonged to Otaka Gengo and, saying they wished to buy it, asked Beauchamp if the object were for sale. Beauchamp’s reply was not uninteresting. He said such a purchase would be quite impossible because all Japanese people were true gentlemen of the sternest integrity. Up to that point he was doing fine. However, the Germans, thinking that they’d found a useful interpreter, thereupon deluged him with questions.”
“About what?”
“That’s just it. If he had understood their questions, there would have been no trouble. But you see he was subjected to floods of such questions, all delivered in rapid German, and he simply couldn’t make head or tail of what was being asked. When at last he chanced to understand part of their outpourings, it was something about a fireman’s axe or a mallet—some word he couldn’t translate—so again, naturally, he was completely at a loss how to reply.”