"And what was he?
Forsooth, a great arithmetician."
_Othello_, I. i.
The puzzles in this department are roughly thrown together in classes
for the convenience of the reader. Some are very easy, others quite
difficult. But they are not arranged in any order of difficulty--and
this is intentional, for it is well that the solver should not be warned
that a puzzle is just what it seems to be. It may, therefore, prove to
be quite as simple as it looks, or it may contain some pitfall into
which, through want of care or over-confidence, we may stumble.
Also, the arithmetical and algebraical puzzles are not separated in the
manner adopted by some authors, who arbitrarily require certain problems
to be solved by one method or the other. The reader is left to make his
own choice and determine which puzzles are capable of being solved by
him on purely arithmetical lines.