Also, the arithmetical and algebraical puzzles are not separated in the
manner adopted by some authors, who arbitrarily require certain problems
to be solved by one method or the other. The reader is left to make his
own choice and determine which puzzles are capable of being solved by
him on purely arithmetical lines.
MONEY PUZZLES.
"Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust."
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
1.--A POST-OFFICE PERPLEXITY.
In every business of life we are occasionally perplexed by some chance
question that for the moment staggers us. I quite pitied a young lady in
a branch post-office when a gentleman entered and deposited a crown on
the counter with this request: "Please give me some twopenny stamps, six
times as many penny stamps, and make up the rest of the money in
twopence-halfpenny stamps." For a moment she seemed bewildered, then her
brain cleared, and with a smile she handed over stamps in exact
fulfilment of the order. How long would it have taken you to think it
out?
2.--YOUTHFUL PRECOCITY.
The precocity of some youths is surprising. One is disposed to say on
occasion, "That boy of yours is a genius, and he is certain to do great
things when he grows up;" but past experience has taught us that he
invariably becomes quite an ordinary citizen. It is so often the case,
on the contrary, that the dull boy becomes a great man. You never can
tell. Nature loves to present to us these queer paradoxes. It is well
known that those wonderful "lightning calculators," who now and again
surprise the world by their feats, lose all their mysterious powers
directly they are taught the elementary rules of arithmetic.
A boy who was demolishing a choice banana was approached by a young
friend, who, regarding him with envious eyes, asked, "How much did you
pay for that banana, Fred?" The prompt answer was quite remarkable in
its way: "The man what I bought it of receives just half as many
sixpences for sixteen dozen dozen bananas as he gives bananas for a
fiver."
Now, how long will it take the reader to say correctly just how much
Fred paid for his rare and refreshing fruit?
3.--AT A CATTLE MARKET.
Three countrymen met at a cattle market. "Look here," said Hodge to
Jakes, "I'll give you six of my pigs for one of your horses, and then
you'll have twice as many animals here as I've got." "If that's your
way of doing business," said Durrant to Hodge, "I'll give you fourteen
of my sheep for a horse, and then you'll have three times as many
animals as I." "Well, I'll go better than that," said Jakes to Durrant;
"I'll give you four cows for a horse, and then you'll have six times as
many animals as I've got here."
No doubt this was a very primitive way of bartering animals, but it is
an interesting little puzzle to discover just how many animals Jakes,
Hodge, and Durrant must have taken to the cattle market.
4.--THE BEANFEAST PUZZLE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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