To open and rejoin a link costs threepence. Therefore to join the nine
pieces into an endless chain would cost 2s. 3d., whereas a new chain
would cost 2s. 2d. But if we break up the piece of eight links, these
eight will join together the remaining eight pieces at a cost of 2s. But
there is a subtle way of even improving on this. Break up the two pieces
containing three and four links respectively, and these seven will join
together the remaining seven pieces at a cost of only 1s. 9d.