Just as they all finished at their respective basins, the door creaked open to reveal chairs and empty tables which were now evidently desks. The pupil in black had reappeared. He informed them that this classroom was where they must come to do their homework and spend their free time in private study, but for now they must go where Pythagoras had indicated.
The hallway which the children now entered made a deep impression on them. Its walls, which rose to a great height, were made of stone like those of a castle. Set in the grim stone surfaces were barred windows, and in between the windows and on every available stretch of wall were portraits of serious- looking men from different ages, each with a nameplate beneath bearing their name (Isaac Newton, Thales of Miletus, René Descartes, he read among others) and their dates. On ledges and suspended from hooks on the walls were numerous mathematical instruments. There were simple ones like protractors, set squares and compasses, and more complex ones like abacuses and sextants. Although the hallway was severe in the extreme, it was also scrupulously clean and well maintained.
The boy dressed in black moved to the head of the crowd and pointed to the room where Pythagoras could be found. The children looked to where he was pointing but by the time they