It was not to be this night. For weeks now I've been trying to finish this curious book I found in Hubbard's library. Every time I made for my room to go to bed  and read something came up. A small task here a cleaning up there. My mentor being quite nocturnal did not help matters. The book in question was by a French author named Moliere, who wrote comical pieces with what could be called social commentary. This fellow was an interesting one, the works feel very lighthearted but contain endless depth. Just before finishing his most famous work: Le Misanthrope, Hubbard called out: "Jeremy could you come over here please?" I Always hate it when he uses that tone. Sure, he provides me with a job and a roof over my head and I'm learning lots of interesting things, but surely that doesn't mean one should always be available. Nevertheless I made my way towards the front of the upper floor, where I found Hubbard in conversation with Welder the wine seller from next door. "Have a seat my lad", invited my mentor whilst pointing to one of the chairs. "Welder has brought quite an ingenious contraption with him for you to try out".

Welder gave me a big mischievous smile. He raised his glass to his lips and just before he drank his wine he paused and said: "Perhaps we should start simpler, to prime him so to speak. Why not give him the Chinese finger trap first?" "Excellent idea", replied Hubbard and reached for something behind him on one of the shelves. "Here Jeremy, give me your hands". I held out my hands to him palms up. "Point your index fingers towards each other please". Hubbard reached over and placed an oddly shaped cylinder in between my fingers. "Ok now stick your fingers in there, one on each side". The device appeared quite harmless. In essence nothing more but a cylinder made from woven strips of thin wood. I stuck my fingers inside, which could now touch in the middle. "Feels interesting doesn't it?" asked Hubbard, looking at me with a glint in his eyes. "What do I do with it?", I asked. "Oh you can take it off now, we're done". Completely confused as to what I was supposed to figure out I tried to pull out my fingers from the wooden cocoon. This had the undesired effect of tightening the contraption and the more I pulled the stronger the device kept my fingers in a tight grip. "Fascinating isn't it?", said Welder examining my face and not my hands. "Now how do you think you will get your fingers out?", asked Hubbard. After thinking about the predicament for a bit and in doing so relaxing my fingers it occurred to me that pushing my fingers into the cylinder might have the effect of loosening its grip. The device was cleverly constructed to have the opposite effect of what you wanted it to do.

"Excellent, he solved it, very good indeed", cried Hubbard. "What have you learned from this young Jeremy?", he asked. Proud to be able to reply immediately I said: "The opposite works. The puzzle is designed to trap you if you try to get out. In actuality pushing your fingers back in releases the mechanism", I said. "Very good, very good. I think you're ready now for Welder's imported Wine Trap. Show it to him Welder", said my mentor now getting quite excited. The wine seller reached behind his chair and pulled out what seemed to me a collection of wooden objects, held together by some rope. Carefully the contraption was placed on the low coffee table. In front of me stood a bottle of wine on a wooden pedestal. Along one side of the bottle a beam reached from the bottom of the contraption to about halfway and held in place two wooden circular pieces that held the glass bottle in place. A piece of rope was attached to the top of the beam and was embedded in a piece of wood that fitted over the top and neck of the bottle. One could easily take off the top piece if it wasn't for a piece of wood with a hole that fitted snugly over a flat pin that was glued to the top piece, as one might put a rope over a horse's neck. This last piece was then connected again by a piece of rope back to the base. If you wanted to use the bottle all you would do is remove the wooden block from the pin and take the top part off from the bottle. You could do this if it weren't for an additional piece of contraption. Through the pin that holds the locking mechanism a hole was drilled through which a pin was stuck. This pin had its own piece of rope coming out of one end, crossed the wooden pin and looped through a hole on the other side twice until it ended in a glass sphere that was firmly attached to the end of the rope.

It took me a while to take in the entire concept and the more I stared at it the more confused I became. "See if you can remove the contraption without breaking the bottle or cutting the cords", asked Hubbard with a devious smile on his face. "Pick it up play with it to feel the full scope of the problem", encouraged Welder. Perhaps the clue to this puzzle was similar to the Chinese finger puzzle and maybe the way to solve this problem was to disable the device in a manner other than trying to untie the knot, which didn't seem to be feasible anyway". "Ah he's going for the alternative solutions", said Hubbard, nodding slightly. "Very clever that boy of yours, most people start to fumble with the knots immediately", contributed Welder.

There did not seem to be a way to get the device off without applying myself to the knot. I jokingly suggested to use a sword to cut the knot in half. This caused some laughs and congratulations on my bible knowledge but I was strongly encouraged to try something more graceful. At last I tried my hand at the knot itself. Working on this end of the puzzle turned out to be even more frustrating, especially since there didn't seem to be a knot at all, just some rope going through the same hole a couple of times.

"Remember what you learned from the other puzzle, how does that apply here?", asked Hubbard. "Well what I learned from that was that sometimes you have to do the opposite, but how can you do the opposite with a knot other than pull it tighter?", I answered. "Think of the problem in general, in the case of the finger puzzle you had to do the opposite but what is the overall conclusion you can draw from that?", added Welder. "Maybe that sometimes something isn't what it appears to be?", I said, simply guessing as to what the right answer might be instead of thinking it through. "Precisely!!", cried Welder slapping himself on the knee. "What does that tell you about this particular puzzle here?". Now something begun to clear up in my mind: "That perhaps this isn't a knot at all ?", I said with some confidence. "By Jove, that boy of yours is clever indeed", said Welder to Hubbard. "Indeed, indeed", replied my mentor, "but he hasn't solved it yet".

Not only hadn't I solved the puzzle yet with this vital hint, I would not solve it for some days. Every evening the contraption would frustrate and haunt me. During all of this Hubbard played the stoic mentor, giving pleasant advice and reminding me that these things were just difficult. Moliere had not been read, having been replaced by an intense desire to solve the puzzle. Four days after the two old men had started the torment I was able to provide them the solution. A solution, which came to me quite by accident when I moved the heart of the knot to a different side of the top of the bottle and by doing so wriggled a loop in the rope loose. There was indeed no knot at all.

"Four days it took him", said Welder to Hubbard on a similarly evening sitting in the same chair. "How long did it take you the first time old friend?", he asked. "That's not important right now. What is important is that he solved it by himself with no help", replied Hubbard. Welder grinned and said: "It took him six days to figure it out and he nearly cut the cords".