46. A gentleman having bought 28 bottles of wine, and suspecting his
servant of tampering with the contents of the wine cellar, caused
these bottles to be arranged in a bin in such a way as to count 9
bottles on each side. Nothwithstanding this precaution, the servant
in two successive visits stole 8 bottles--4 each time--re-arranging
the bottles each time so that they still counted 9 on a side. How did
he do it?
+-------------+
| 2 5 2 |
| |
| |
| 5 5 |
| |
| |
| 2 5 2 |
+-------------+
FATHER--“You are very backward in your arithmetic. When I was
your age I was doing cube roots.”
BOY--“What’s them?”
FATHER--“What! You don’t know what they are? My! my! that’s
terrible! There, give me your pencil. Now, we take, say, 28764289,
and find the cube root. First, you divide--no, you point off--no--let
me see?--um--yes--no--don’t stand there grinning like a Cheshire cat;
go upstairs and stay in your bedroom for an hour.”