MR. DOODLE-DOODLE-DOO

Mr. Doodle-Doodle-Doo, the great mathematician and lexicographer, then put aside his work and said: ‘adultery and adulteration can wait until I return.’

For Mr. Doodle-Doodle-Do was at one thing or the other by turns, and this particular morning he felt his mathematical genius complaining: it was undoubtedly true that it was a long time since he had been out to get Numbers. So, leaving adultery and adulteration to take care of themselves, he walked out into the Square, and from the Square into the Gardens; and in the Gardens he sat down on a bench near the rockery and began to think with the mathematical half of his brain.

‘Let me see. I left off with honey last time. Now the problem will be to show that honey as a purely mathematical symbol is equivalent to honey as a philological integer. If I can do this I have once more proved that 2 × 2 = 4 is the equivalent of “two times two is four.” For it’s not enough to show a thing is true: you must also show that true is true. By being a mathematical lexicographer and a lexicographical mathematician, I am therefore able to check the truth with the truth. My last words are never “that’s true” but “that’s correct,” which explains how I can be a philosopher and a gentleman at the same time.’

With this Mr. Doodle-Doodle-Doo crowed three times: once for lexicography (Doodle), once for mathematics (Doodle), and once for himself (Doo), wherein the truth was checked by itself and found correct. The immediate matter in hand, however, was honey. So he left off crowing and proceeded with his calculations, which went so quickly that it is very difficult to record them. But they were something like this:—

H O N E Y = HONE + Y

G O N E + Y = GONEY (sailors’ term for albatross)

L O N E + Y = LONE(L)Y

B O N E + Y = BONEY

O N E + Y + M = MONEY

BONEY GONEY HONEY LONE(L)Y MONEY

1 2 3 4 5

H O N E Y

1 2 3 4 5

At this point he stopped following him. But that his researches must have reached some happy conclusion was obvious from the enthusiasm with which he later returned to his lexicography. His calculations then ran something like this:—

1 2 3 4 5

H O N E Y

1 2 3 4 5

A D U L T [ E R Y

1 2 3 4 5

H O N E Y

1 2 3 4 5

A D U L T [ E R A T I O N

∴ H O N E Y E R Y ∵ H O N E Y E R A T I O N

1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5

But H O N E Y = S W E E T

5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1

∴ S W E E T E R Y ∵ S W E E T E R A T I O N

Which went far enough to persuade him that in lexicography he was, if anything, even more skilled than in mathematics.