“Here's forty obols says it can.”
There was another pause, and then a cheer.
“Yeah!”
“That's more of a parallelogram, if you ask me,” said a petulant voice.
“Listen, I knows a square when I sees one! And that's a square.”
“All right. Double or nothing then. Bet it can't do a dodecagon.”
“Hah! You bet it couldn't do a septagon just now.”
“Double or nothing. Dodecagon. Worried, eh! Feeling a bit avis domestica? Cluck-cluck?”
“It's a shame to take your money . . .”
There was another pause.
“Ten sides? Ten sides? Hah!”
“Told you it wasn't any good! Whoever heard of a tortoise doing geometry?”
“Another daft idea, Didactylos?”
“I said so all along. It's just a tortoise.”
“There's good eating on one of those things . . .”
The mass of philosophers broke up, pushing past Brutha without paying him much attention. He caught a glimpse of a circle of damp sand, covered with geometrical figures. Om was sitting in the middle of them. Behind him was a very grubby pair of philosophers, counting out a pile of coins.
“How did we do, Urn?” said Didactylos.
“We're fifty-two obols up, master.”
“See? Every day things improve. Pity it didn't know the difference between ten and twelve, though. Cut one of its legs off and we'll have a stew.”
“Cut off a leg?”
“Well, a tortoise like that, you don't eat it all at once.”
Didactylos turned his face towards a plump young man with splayed feet and a red face, who was staring at the tortoise.
“Yes?” he said.
“The tortoise does know the difference between ten and twelve,” said the fat boy.
“Damn thing just lost me eighty obols,” said Didactylos.
“Yes. But tomorrow . . .” the boy began, his eyes glazing as if he was carefully repeating something he'd just heard “. . . tomorrow . . . you should be able to get odds of at least three to one.”
Didactylos's mouth dropped open.
“Give me the tortoise, Urn,” he said.
The apprentice philosopher reached down and picked up Om, very carefully.
“You know, I thought right at the start there was something funny about this creature,” said Didactylos. “I said to Urn, there's tomorrow's dinner, and then he says no, it's dragging its tail in the sand and doing geometry. That doesn't come natural to a tortoise, geometry.”