Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 267, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1914 — The Most Absent-Minded Ever. [ARTICLE]

The Most Absent-Minded Ever.

At a dinner-party Dr. Woohrow Wilson of Princeton was describing the absent-mindedness of a certain mathematician. “This man," he said, “Is so absentminded that once he walked along for a quarter of a mile In the gutter instead of on the sidewalk. He would haye kept dn in the gutter Indfefinitely had not the polished back of a brougham, that was drawn up before • shop, brought him to a halt. ."The mathematician stopped within a foot of the brougham. He looked at the black, smooth, lustrous surface before him, and it suggested to his mind a black-board. Accordingly he drew a piece of chalk from his pocket and began to work out an abstruse problem. ( “On and on he worked, covering the carriage with figures, until finally It started on. Still working, the mathematician followed it; he held on to the body with his left hand, and not until the pace became too quick for him did he realize that something was wrong. Then he sighed, looked about him and in a dazed way, pocketed hiß chalk, and started homeward/’