INTELLECT SHARPENERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23220, 18 June 1937, Page 5

INTELLECT SHARPENERS

Written for the Otago Daily Times By C. J. Wherefore

Correspondence should be addressed to Box 1177. Wellington ANAGRAM In the lines given below the three spaces are to be filled with words composed of the same six letters. He grudged the time he waited for the train. For what he had up within his mind, Made him impatient to go home again, And do the work he left undone behind. The train arrived, but when the mail it brought Was . not one letter for him came. He away with many an angry thought About the friends he felt inclined to blame. ARMCHAIR PROBLEM Mary had hoped she would get a bicycle as a birthday present, butsnone of her relatives thought of this, Bnd the two presents of money which came in were not enough to pay for one she had seen in a second-hand dealer's shop. The price marked on this was not much, and amounted to a number of guineas. What "she received was a postal order for a number of shillings and a cheque for just six times this number. She had to withdraw all the shillings she had in the Post Office Savings Bank, and with this total, and perhaps with a certain amount of persuasion also, she satisfied the dealer, although one-ninth of the price had to be left to be paid by instalments. What was the price of the bicycle? COMING HOME Professor Aftermath had spent the evening at a meeting of some scientific society, of which he is a member. He says that he returned to his home in a suburb by a tram, which arrived there just after 11 p.m. Three of his daughters, who had been at parties or at the pictures, arrived by trams between 11 and midnight No two of them travelled by the same tram, and, according to the statements made by their father, the numbers of minutes after 11 p.m., at which they reached their home, when added together, come to exactly 60 minutes. There is an 18 minutes' tram service on that line at the time specified. At what times did these individuals reach their homes? A PROBLEM IN THE HUT There were eight men in a hut one evening, and two of them, Robinson and Stephenson, were playing cards for a small stake, only a tew pence Robinson won, and his opponent, when agreeing to a second game, doubled the amount of the stake. They played several games, and each time Robinson won, and the loser doubled the stake he had just lost, when preparing to deal the cards again. Then Thomson offered to bet a certain amount that Stephenson's luck would change, and each of the other men in the hut. not named, took this bet. Stephenson won the next game, and thus Thomson won his bet, and both of them collected whatever was due to them, but Thomson's winnings were considerably more than those of his friend. In fact, his winnings came -to exactly the square of the sum which was Stephenson's profit, after he had paid off all he had lost in the previous games. What was the amount staked by the players on the first game, and how much did Thomson win? BURIED TREASURE The paddock across which we were walking has four sides, each of them a straight line, and their lengths, taken in order, are 14, 50, 20, and 52 chains. The path we followed is also perfectly straight, it is 48 chains in length, and forms the smaller of the two diagonals. It is perhaps unfortunate that a diagram, or even a sketch, cannot be shown here. My companion told me that there is a vague tradition about a treasure being buried in this paddock, at a point which.is 10 chains from? the longest side and seven chains from the second longest. He added that these two measurements form a straight line across the paddock. I told him that, if this story is true, we had actually walked over the treasure on our way across the paddock. Is this true? A SMALL LEGACY Uncle Tom, when he joined the majority, had only a'few hundred pounds to leave behind him, and he bequeathed all of it to his nephew Alfred, with his wife, Bessie, and to his niece. Cicely, with her husband Douglas. Cicely was his god-daughter, and had been his favourite, so that everyone expected she would get most, but Uncle Tom had always disliked her husband. He did not leave this unfortunate man out altogether for a reason that will be apparent presently, but the amount left to him was as small as it could be. The testator had thought it a good idea that the products of the numbers of pounds left to husband and wife should be the same for both the married pairs. Obviously, this could not mean that they received equal shares; and, in fact, Cicely and her husband together actually inherited £3OO more than Alfred and Bessie. How much was left to each of the four beneficiaries? SOLUTIONS OF LAST WEEK'S PROBLEMS Answer This Question. —The man has 10 pigs. The omission renders it uncertain whether he sold one or three but that is not the question asked. Kept In.—Each of the four amounts came to £9 12s 6d. They were 22 at 8s 9d. 33 at 5s lOd. 55 at 3s 6d. and 66 at 2s lid. Fines.—-It is clear that the fines must be £4, £6, and £9. The only factor of £l9 worth of pence, which is between 200 and 300, is 240. therefore 240 persons paid Is 7d. Change.—Of course the customer spent the same amount at both shops, so that most of the story is useless What is really useful is that twice the cost of the cigarettes is one-twelfth of £l, hence they cost lOd. Argumentative Problem.—This is reallv quite easy. The day was not Monday or Tuesday, because the weekly papers had arrived. It was not Saturday, because the stores were open. It was not Friday, because Miss T. was really there, although she pretended not to see him. It was not Thursday, because her mother was there. Therefore it must have been Wednesday, but after the papers had been fetched from the railway station.