Child's Play is a mystery short story by Isaac Asimov.
Part of the Union Club series, it was first published in the January 1986 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.
Summary[]
In the Union Club library, Baranov's boasting about his grandson leads to a discussion of child prodigies. This prompts Griswold to recount a story from his own childhood, when he was nine years old. During a social gathering at his parents' house, a guest named Dowling challenged the adults with a word puzzle. He presented a list of thirteen words in alphabetical order: accent, advantage, cipher, evince, except, exist, give, line, mist, mix, sadly, solve, summer. The challenge was to determine what the words had in common and then rearrange them into a more sensible order. Dowling offered to bet on anyone's solution, keeping the correct answer sealed in an envelope.
The adults struggled with the puzzle, analyzing the words' lengths, syllables, and parts of speech without success. Griswold, who had been secretly observing from the stairs, took a copy of the list and solved it. He boldly came forward and bet fifty dollars, a substantial sum at the time, that he was correct. With his father's reluctant loan, he placed the bet. Griswold presented his solution, which Dowling verified was right, and the boy won the money.
Griswold had identified that each word contained two consecutive letters that formed a Roman numeral. He rearranged the list in order of increasing numerical value. Having just learned Roman numerals in school, he solved what the adults, who had likely forgotten them, could not.
Characters[]
- Griswold
- Club Member (the narrator)
- Baranov
- Jennings
- Dowling
- Griswold's Father
- Griswold's Mother
- The Party Guests
- The Fat Man
- Baranov's Grandson
- Jennings's Granddaughter
See Also[]
List of short stories by Isaac Asimov