The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-07
HOW HE FIGURED TT OUT.
Remarkable Mathema tical Feat of a
 Man Who Had Been to a Club Din

l Remarkable Mathematical Feat of a | Man Who Had Been to a Club Din- | ner.
 T went to a club dinner the other night" said the man who lives In | Harlem, and had an adventure when I got home which shows the advantage | of having scientific mind. You see live in an apartment house, whose ele-
 night I reached the house an hour or
 so after the time of the last trip. First there was the front dor to get open but with the aid of my night key I accomplished this in less than half an hour. Then I sat down before
 the locked elevator door and tried to reason out the situation. Half an hour more and the thing was as plain as day. If l wanted to get to my apartment on
 the fourth floor that night I'd have to walk rested while and then started upstairs. Of course, the halls and stairways were all alike, so I would have to count each flight to know when was at my own door.
 "'One flight I reflected. Two
 hgts. Then when I was half way up flight I suddenly realized that I wasn't sure whether I was still on the second flight and had counted tt as I got to it or whether I was on the third flight and was waiting to count 1t when | reached the end of it. Of course, there was only one thing to do, and I did It. I went down to the front hall again and after another rest started upstairs again.
 "'One flight two flights It was all right this time. I was doing finely. But hold on I was Just six steps up a flight Was I counting flights at the beginning or at the end of them? Of course, ought to have made definite rule on that second trip and stuck to 1t. I did the next best thing and went back to the front hall for another start This time, I said to myself, I would count every flight as I struck it. In that way I would know just where I was at every step of my jour- ney, and all possibility of miscount would be Eliminated.
 "'One flight I said as I put my foot on the first step. Two flights I said as I struck the first step of the second flight. What a beautiful thing is I gled up in regular quagmire of stair flights on those first two trips, and here was mounting upward with the ease and precision of an automobile with cyclometer. Not only is method a beautiful thing, but when it is based on science. Just then I paused in my upward career.
 T was conscious of a growing and unpleasant impression that I had passed the beginnings of at least two, perhaps three or four flights of stairs in my rapt consideration of the beau- ties of method-especially scientific method. I turned and went slowly down to the front, somewhat sadden ed but determined man.
 q won't weary you with the &C., counts of my further attempts to make the fourth floor of that six-story house, nor of the elaborate systems I devised to make sure of my counting I tried it four or five times more and every time I failed on account of some un- | foreseen flaw in my system and finally 1 found myself panting and perspiring on the settle in the front hall. I thought l it over carefully but could SC no hope ' at my rresent rate, of anything but up and down those ghastly stairs until I was a feeble, gray beard ed old man. The picture was so sad that 1 got out my handkerchief and