Unfamiliar Familiarity
Professor Phelps used to tell with glee of the way he gained a reputation for knowing a thing he hated. He took a walk with Professor Newton, who lived in the world of the higher mathematics, and started off at once to discuss an abstruse problem. Mr. Phelps’s mind could not follow, and wandered off to other things. At last he was called back when the professor wound up with “which you see gives us X.” “Does it?” asked Mr. Phelps, politely. “Why, doesn’t it?” exclaimed the professor, excitedly, alarmed at the possibility of a flaw in his calculations. Quickly his mind ran back and detected a mistake. “You are right, Mr. Phelps; you are right,” shouted the professor. “It doesn’t give us X; it gives us Y.” And from that time Mr. Phelps was looked upon as a mathematical prodigy, the first man who ever tripped the professor.