Solomon's Stone

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When Montague Stark had explained what he was going to do, he added: "You understand, folks, I'm sure this won't work or I wouldn't try it." He looked up from where he squatted on the uncovered floor, drawing circles with a compass improvised from a pushpin, a piece of chalk, and a string."If it did, we'd probably set the house on fire at least. Prosper, what's the trick for inscribing a pentagon in a circle?"

"Let me think," said Prosper Nash. He closed his eyes and mentally thumbed the pages of a plane geometry text that he had studied ten years previously. At last he opined: "Lay off two-thirds of the radius along the arc, ten times running. That's not exact but it ought to do. He's not going to bring a steel tape along to measure your diagrams, is he?"

Stark laughed, "The pentacles in the grimoires are mostly pretty irregular, so ours ought to do." He set about ruling off a five-pointed star in the larger of the two circles. He added a number of astronomical symbols and Hebrew letters to the resulting figure, inscribed an equilateral triangle in the other circle, and put three small circles inside the triangle."Alice, may I use your coffee table?"

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