(With apologies to the Strand.)
A rope is passed over a pulley. It has a weight at one end and a monkey
at the other. There is the same length of rope on either side and
equilibrium is maintained. The rope weighs four ounces per foot. The
age of the monkey and the age of the monkey's mother together total four
years. The weight of the monkey is as many pounds as the monkey's mother
is years old. The monkey's mother was twice as old as the monkey was
when the monkey's mother was half as old as the monkey will be when
the monkey is three times as old as the monkey's mother was when the
monkey's mother was three times as old as the monkey. The weight of the
rope with the weight at the end was half as much again as the difference
in weight between the weight of the weight and the weight of the monkey.
Now, what was the length of the rope?
My Solution: I should think it would have to be a rope of a fairly good
length.
In only one department of English journalism have I met with a decided
measure of success; I refer to the juvenile competition department. This
is a sort of thing to which the English are especially addicted. As a
really educated nation for whom good literature begins in the home they
encourage in every way literary competitions among the young readers
of their journals. At least half a dozen of the well-known London
periodicals carry on this work. The prizes run all the way from one
shilling to half a guinea and the competitions are generally open to all
children from three to six years of age. It was here that I saw my open
opportunity and seized it. I swept in prize after prize. As "Little
Agatha" I got four shillings for the best description of Autumn in two
lines, and one shilling for guessing correctly the missing letters in
BR-STOL, SH-FFIELD, and H-LL. A lot of the competitors fell down
on H-LL. I got six shillings for giving the dates of the Norman
Conquest,--1492 A.D., and the Crimean War of 1870. In short, the thing
was easy. I might say that to enter these competitions one has to have
a certificate of age from a member of the clergy. But I know a lot of
them.