People give all sorts of absurd answers to this question, and yet it is
perfectly simple if one just considers that the salesman cannot possibly
have lost more than the cyclist actually stole. The latter rode away
with a bicycle which cost the salesman eleven pounds, and the ten pounds
"change;" he thus made off with twenty-one pounds, in exchange for a
worthless bit of paper. This is the exact amount of the salesman's loss,
and the other operations of changing the cheque and borrowing from a
friend do not affect the question in the slightest. The loss of
prospective profit on the sale of the bicycle is, of course, not direct
loss of money out of pocket.