ODDS AND ENDS

Here is a long-division sum withoutfigures:—

Image

These letters form a sentence of three words.........., and represent the figures 1234 5678 90; the puzzle is to discover this key sentence, by working out the sum in the corresponding figures.

Solution

At the invitation of a farmer in the country I went out with my gun for a day’s shooting on his farm. “What sport had you?” said a friend afterwards at the Club. “I shot only birds and rabbits,” was my reply, “and the bag showed 36 heads and 100 feet.” How many birds were there, and how many bunnies?

Solution

Image

How many distinct readings of these four words can you find, taking their letters in any “go as you please” direction, without jumping over any letter?

Solution

Can our readers rearrange these letters in the form of a similar cross, so that they form two words familiar to us all?

Image

One of the letters, to be placed where the lower E now stands, is common to both words.

Solution

“Take this sovereign, my boy,” said a man to his son who had a turn for arithmetic, “and buy for yourself and for your three sisters the best present possible for each, of different values, expending in each case an aliquot part of the pound, that is to say, a fraction of it whose numerator is one. If there is any change you can give it to the Fresh Air Fund.” How was this commission carried out?

Solution

Can you complete this word-square?

Image

Solution

First find a word that is spelt with the ten letters above the line, and number its letters consecutively 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0.

Image

Substitute the corresponding figures for the letters, and then work out the addition sum which they represent.

Solution

Can you complete this word square?

Image

Solution

Take the twelve first prime numbers, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, which have no factors but themselves and unity, and write down the value of their product, using no figures but 0, 1, 2, and 3, and of these using 2 and 3 only once.

Solution

Six collars seven cuffs there beWhen pence we charge you thirty-three;Seven collars and six cuffs to doThe charge is only thirty-two;The work is good and up-to-date,So figure out in pence the rate.

Solution

Can you complete this word square?

Image

Solution

Fill a wineglass with water to the brim, and set it on the corner of a table-napkin, which should be in immediate contact with the polished surface of a table, allowing the rest of the napkin to fall over the edge. Can you remove the napkin without touching the glass or spilling any of the water?

Solution

My third and fourth are a quarter of my first and second; my fourth is half of them, and my third is half. What am I?

Solution

A London firm, having sent an order by telegram to a manufacturer in Paris for 480 sets of Diabolo, received to their amazement a huge consignment of 6336 sets. How did this mistake arise?

Solution

Thy heart is like some icy lakeOn whose cold brink I stand;On my sore plight sweet pity take,And lead me by the hand.Then buckle on my spirit’s skateWhere all the ice is thin,That it may break beneath my weight,And let a lover in!

“My husband’s age,” said Mrs Evergreen, “is represented by the figures of my age reversed. He is older than I am, and the difference between our ages is one-eleventh of their sum.” What were their respective ages?

Solution

Can you complete this multiplication sum?

Image

Solution

Add 3 to 10, and then divideTill 8 the sum has satisfied.

Solution

I bought less than 100 plants for my new rosery, and found that if I set them 3 in a row there would be one over; if 4 in a row there would be two over; if 5 in a row, three over; and if 6 in a row, four over. How many rose trees did I buy?

Solution

Can you arrange three nines so that they represent exactly 20?

Solution

A house has nine windows on its front. How many signals can be given by merely leaving one or more of them open?

Solution

“Reader, whether man or woman,Write my age in figures Roman.My first divided by my secondWill make my third, if rightly reckoned;Ten times the whole, and then you seeMy university degree.”

Solution

The heath this night must be my bed, (Scott)Ye vales, ye streams, ye groves, adieu! (Pope)Farewell for aye; e’en love is dead; (Proctor)Would I could add remembrance too! (Byron)

Solution

The springs spring forth in spring, and shootsShoot forward one and all;Though summer kills the flowers, it leavesThe leaves to fall in fall!

This arrangement of the digits represents 20, one being a whole number, the others afraction:—

613258947= 20

The battle of Montl’héry was fought in 1465. Its date can be committed to memory in the sentence which might have been a battle-cry—“A cheval, à cheval, gendarmes, à cheval!” For it is arrived at by the addition of the Roman numerals which this contains,thus:—

In this most remarkable sentence of only twenty-eight letters, every letter of the alphabet isused—

IF JACK QUIZ BALD NYMPHS GROW VEXT.

Tom Hood, seeing over the door of a public-house BEAR SOLD HERE, said that it was rightly spelt if it was the landlord’sown bruin!

Here is an ingenious rhyming couplet of only 33 letters, in which every letter of the alphabet isused—

Quick! go on, Jim! whyStop lazy fox? Drive by!

A sa Majesté impériale le Tsar Nicolas, souverain et autocrate de toutes les Russies.

The same letters exactlyspell—

O, ta vanité sera ta perte. O, elle isole la Russie; tes successeurs te maudiront à jamais!

This most remarkable anagram was published in the early days of the Crimean war.

“Notes and Queries.”

A question sender.Enquires on dates.Reasoned inquest.I send on a request.

The name of John Abernethy, a very brusque doctor of bygone days, lends itself to this most apposite anagram—Johnny the bear!

Duchess of Marlborough.She labours much for God.

Or,

The Duchess of Marlborough.Lo, she sought much for bread.

French guest to his host after a bigshoot:—

“How many braces have you to your bags?”

It would be difficult to find a more ingenious and appropriate anagram than this, which took a prize in “Truth” in 1902, and connects the King’s recovery with the Coronation.

The sentence setwas—

“God save our newly crowned King and Queen! Long life to Edward and Alexandra!”

The letters of this were recastthus—

Can we wonder an anxious devoted England followed drear danger quakingly?

“Truth” offered a prize for the best anagram on the sentence—“‘Truth’ Toy and Doll Fund, Christmas, nineteen hundred and seven.” The winning anagram, by the Editor of these pages, was, “A sunny tender mind understands that the children do love fun!”

In a moment of economy I told my wife that I would put by a farthing the first week of the New Year, a halfpenny the second week, a penny the third, and so on, doubling the sum each week to the end of the year. She had a turn for figures, and staggered me by showing that I should have to provide £4,691,249,611,844, 5s. 33⁄4d. to carry out my plan!

Now that Ellen Terry has written “The Story of My Life,” this anagram has a specialinterest:—

LYCEUM THEATRE, STRAND.Teach and melt us, Terry!

More startling than the well-known calculation of payment by continuously doubling the farthing given for the first nail in a horse’s shoe, is the fact that the possible changes on a peal of 24 bells would not be exhausted if every minute of 4000 years were prolonged to a period of 10,000 years!

Erasmus himself was responsible in one of his lighter moments for the following ingenious play upon hisname:—

Quæritur unde mihi sit nomen Erasmus,eras mus;Sisum musego, te judice,summusero!

“Well!” cried an agitated carpenter to his mate, “of all the saws that I ever saw saw, I never saw a saw saw as this saw saws!”

If I be duly punishedFor every foolish pun I shed,I shall not find one puny shedIn which to hide my punnish head!

CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM EATER.

The same letters recastspell—

If so, man, refuse poison at once!

The following curiosity, constructed some years ago for prize purposes by the Editor, shows how, in word or letter juggling, difficulties can beovercome:—

A sentence in which each letter of the alphabet is used exactly twice:

“XLV gruff nymphs jerk XLV jaws,” quoth wag B. Dick, Q.C., to Ben Dizzy, M.P.

If anagrams count, our “ancestor” was not a monkey but aNorse cat!

The name of Randle Holmes, author of a notable book on heraldry, was so recast that it formed the words: “Lo, men’s herald!”

Dog as a devil deified lived as a god.

The Oxford and Cambridge annual Boat-race.Cantab blue had raced in an extra good form.

Tell a person who holds a sovereign in one hand and a shilling in the other to reckon 4 for the gold, and 3 for the silver. Then bid him triple what is in the right hand, and double what is in the left, and give you the added product. If this is anevennumber the gold is in the right hand, ifoddit is in the left.

Adelina Patti.Adept Italian.

Sir Charles Napier’s witty despatch, “Peccavi!” “I have Scinde!” is familiar to us. Not so well known is the happy phrase attributed to Sir Colin Campbell, “Nunc sum fortunatus!” “I am in Lucknow!”

Owen, the Welsh epigrammatist, composed this very clever Latinline:—

Inverbis, ubi respostulat, estobrevis.

(“In words, where the matter requires it, be brief.”)

The words in italics are spelt with the same six letters.

Take a long strip of paper, say 9 in. by 2 in., which will have, of course, an upper and an under surface and two edges along its length. How can you arrange this strip, by quite a simple method so that it will have onlyonesurface andoneedge?

Solution

Can you divide nine into two parts which are together equal to ten?

Solution

A shepherd had a flock of sheep in a fold enclosed by 100 hurdles. His master made a large purchase at the annual fair, and required him to pen some pigs with 16 of the hurdles, and to arrange the remainder so that they could accommodate nine times as many sheep as the 100 hurdles had contained. How was this possible?

Solution

Here is a neat final trick, if you have some reputation for sleight of hand. Place three biscuits on the table in a row, and cover each of them with a borrowed hat. Raise each hat in turn, gravely eat the biscuit, and replace the hat. Then undertake that the three biscuits shall be under whichever hat is selected. How can you contrive this?

Solution

In how many different ways can 7s. 3d. be paid away in current coin of the realm, without ever using exactly the same set of coins a second time?

Solution

Back to Index Next