Two of our Public Schools were engaged playing a football match one
afternoon. The head master of one of them had generously given the
boys a half-holiday; but the gentleman who held the same capacity in
the other school, not being an ardent admirer of Australia’s national
game, refused to do so. When school assembled in the afternoon, a
boy volunteered to ask the master for the desired holiday. When the
question was put, he firmly answered, “No, no!” whereupon the bright
youth called out: “Hurrah! we have our holiday; two negatives make an
affirmative.” The teacher was so pleased at the boy’s sharpness that
he dismissed the school right away.
195. A man arrives at the railway station nearest to his home 1½
hours before the time at which he had ordered his carriage to meet
him. He sets out at once to walk at the rate of four miles an hour,
and, meeting his carriage when it had travelled eight miles, reaches
home exactly one hour earlier than he had originally expected. How
far was his house from the station, and at what rate was his carriage
driven?
“OFF THE TRACK.”
196. A man starts to walk from a town, A, to a town B, a distance by
road of 16 miles, at the rate of 4 miles an hour. There is a point
C on the road, at which the road to B leads away to the right, and
another road at right-angles to this latter goes to the left, “to no
place in particular.” The unwary traveller gets on to this left hand
road, and is walking for 2¼ hours since he left A, before he finds
out his mistake, and he resolves not to go back to the junction,
which is five miles away, but makes straight across the bush to B,
and strikes it exactly. How long did it take to go from A to B?