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This person joined
the party on the road.
"'God save,' quoth
he, 'this
jolly company! Fast have I ridden,' saith he, 'for your sake, Because I
would I might you overtake, To ride among this merry
company.'"
Of
course, he was asked to entertain the pilgrims with a puzzle, and the
one
he propounded was the following.
He showed them the diamond-shaped
arrangement
of letters
presented in the accompanying illustration, and
said, "I do call it the rat-catcher's riddle.
In how many different
ways
canst thou read the words, 'Was it a rat I saw?'"
You may go in any
direction backwards and forwards, upwards or downwards, only the
successive letters in any reading must always adjoin one another.
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