COWPER: The Task.97.--THE SPOT ON THE TABLE.
A boy, recently home from school, wished to give his father an exhibition of his precocity. He pushed a large circular table into the corner of the room, as shown in the illustration, so that it touched both walls, and he then pointed to a spot of ink on the extreme edge.
"Here is a little puzzle for you, pater," said the youth. "That spot is exactly eight inches from one wall and nine inches from the other. Can you tell me the diameter of the table without measuring it?"
The boy was overheard to tell a friend, "It Pg 18fairly beat the guv'nor;" but his father is known to have remarked to a City acquaintance that he solved the thing in his head in a minute. I often wonder which spoke the truth.
98.--ACADEMIC COURTESIES.
In a certain mixed school, where a special feature was made of the inculcation of good manners, they had a curious rule on assembling every morning. There were twice as many girls as boys. Every girl made a bow to every other girl, to every boy, and to the teacher. Every boy made a bow to every other boy, to every girl, and to the teacher. In all there were nine hundred bows made in that model academy every morning. Now, can you say exactly how many boys there were in the school? If you are not very careful, you are likely to get a good deal out in your calculation.
99.--THE THIRTY-THREE PEARLS.
"A man I know," said Teddy Nicholson at a certain family party, "possesses a string of thirty-three pearls. The middle pearl is the largest and best of all, and the others are so selected and arranged that, starting from one end, each successive pearl is worth PS100 more than the preceding one, right up to the big pearl. From the other end the pearls increase in value by PS150 up to the large pearl. The whole string is worth PS65,000. What is the value of that large pearl?"
"Pearls and other articles of clothing," said Uncle Walter, when the price of the precious gem had been discovered, "remind me of Adam and Eve. Authorities, you may not know, differ as to the number of apples that were eaten by Adam and Eve. It is the opinion of some that Eve 8 (ate) and Adam 2 (too), a total of 10 only. But certain mathematicians have figured it out differently, and hold
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that Eve 8 and Adam a total of 16. Yet the most recent investigators think the above figures entirely wrong, for if Eve 8 and Adam 8
2, the total must be 90."
"Well," said Harry, "it seems to me that if there were giants in those days, probably Eve 8 1 and Adam 8 2, which would give a total of 163."
"I am not at all satisfied," said Maud. "It seems to me that if Eve 8 1 and Adam 8 1 2, they together consumed 893."
"I am sure you are all wrong," insisted Mr. Wilson, "for I consider that Eve 8 1 4 Adam, and Adam 8 1 2 4 Eve, so we get a total of
8,938."
"But, look here," broke in Herbert. "If Eve 8 1 4 Adam and Adam 8 1 2 4 2 oblige Eve, surely the total must have been 82,056!" At this point Uncle Walter suggested that they might let the matter rest. He declared it to be clearly what mathematicians call an
indeterminate problem.
100.--THE LABOURER'S PUZZLE.
Professor Rackbrane, during one of his rambles, chanced to come upon a man digging a deep hole. "Good morning," he said. "How deep is that hole?"
"Guess," replied the labourer. "My height is exactly five feet ten inches."
"How much deeper are you going?" said the professor.
"I am going twice as deep," was the answer, "and then my head will be twice as far below ground as it is now above ground."
Rackbrane now asks if you could tell how deep that hole would be when finished.
101.--THE TRUSSES OF HAY.
Farmer Tompkins had five trusses of hay, which he told his man Hodge to weigh before delivering them to a customer. The stupid
fellow weighed them two at a time in all possible ways, and informed his master that the weights in pounds were 110, 112, 113, 114,
115, 116, 117, 118, 120, and 121. Now, how was Farmer Tompkins to find out from these figures how much every one of the five trusses weighed singly? The reader may at first think that he ought to be told "which pair is which pair," or something of that sort, but it is quite unnecessary. Can you give the five correct weights?
102.--MR. GUBBINS IN A FOG.
Mr. Gubbins, a diligent man of business, was much inconvenienced by a London fog. The electric light happened to be out of order and he had to manage as best he could with two candles. His clerk assured him that though Pg 19both were of the same length one candle would burn for four hours and the other for five hours. After he had been working some time he put the candles out as the fog had lifted, and he then noticed that what remained of one candle was exactly four times the length of what was left of the other.
When he got home that night Mr. Gubbins, who liked a good puzzle, said to himself, "Of course it is possible to work out just how long those two candles were burning to-day. I'll have a shot at it." But he soon found himself in a worse fog than the atmospheric one. Could you have assisted him in his dilemma? How long were the candles burning?
103.--PAINTING THE LAMP-POSTS.
Tim Murphy and Pat Donovan were engaged by the local authorities to paint the lamp-posts in a certain street. Tim, who was an early riser, arrived first on the job, and had painted three on the south side when Pat turned up and pointed out that Tim's contract was for the north side. So Tim started afresh on the north side and Pat continued on the south. When Pat had finished his side he went across the street and painted six posts for Tim, and then the job was finished. As there was an equal number of lamp-posts on each side of the street, the simple question is: Which man painted the more lamp-posts, and just how many more?
104.--CATCHING THE THIEF.
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"Now, constable," said the defendant's counsel in cross-examination," you say that the prisoner was exactly twenty-seven steps ahead of you when you started to run after him?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you swear that he takes eight steps to your five?"
"That is so."
"Then I ask you, constable, as an intelligent man, to explain how you ever caught him, if that is the case?"
"Well, you see, I have got a longer stride. In fact, two of my steps are equal in length to five of the prisoner's. If you work it out, you will find that the number of steps I required would bring me exactly to the spot where I captured him."
Here the foreman of the jury asked for a few minutes to figure out the number of steps the constable must have taken. Can you also say how many steps the officer needed to catch the thief ?
105.--THE PARISH COUNCIL ELECTION.
Here is an easy problem for the novice. At the last election of the parish council of Tittlebury-in-the-Marsh there were twenty-three candidates for nine seats. Each voter was qualified to vote for nine of these candidates or for any less number. One of the electors wants to know in just how many different ways it was possible for him to vote.
