Four brothers--named John, William, Charles, and Thomas--had each a
money-box. The boxes were all given to them on the same day, and they at
once put what money they had into them; only, as the boxes were not very
large, they first changed the money into as few coins as possible. After
they had done this, they told one another how much money they had saved,
and it was found that if John had had 2s. more in his box than at
present, if William had had 2s. less, if Charles had had twice as much,
and if Thomas had had half as much, they would all have had exactly the
same amount.
Now, when I add that all four boxes together contained 45s., and that
there were only six coins in all in them, it becomes an entertaining
puzzle to discover just what coins were in each box.