The Canterbury Puzzles, and Other Curious Problems

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 27635-h.htm or 27635-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/6/3/...

Sometimes people will attempt to bewilder you by curious little twists in the meaning of words. A man recently propounded to me the old familiar problem, "A boy walks round a po...

We find that there was a cook among the company; and his services were no doubt at times in great request, "For he could roast and seethe, and broil and fry, And make a mortress...

The Manciple was an officer who had the care of buying victuals for an Inn of Court--like the Temple. The particular individual who accompanied the party was a wily man who had...

"No," replied Father Peter, after the monks' jovial laughter had ended, "I said 'mice;' and all I need add is this--that each cat killed more mice than there were cats. They tol...

"If you fellows want to hear," resumed Baynes, "just try to keep quiet while I relate the amusing affair to you. You all know of the jealous little Yankee who married Lord Marks...

"Now," he said, "you see these tumblers form eight horizontal and eight vertical lines, and if you look at them diagonally (both ways) there are twenty-six other lines. If you r...

Here is a puzzle that was once on sale in the London shops. It represents a military train--an engine and eight cars. The puzzle is to reverse the cars, so that they shall be in...

The dominions of a certain Eastern monarch formed a perfectly square tract of country. It happened that the king one day discovered that his four sons were not only plotting aga...

The Monk might have placed dogs in the kennels in two thousand nine hundred and twenty-six different ways, so that there should be ten dogs on every side. The number of dogs mig...

The reader will doubtless here exclaim, "This is all very well; but how were we to know the height of Sir Hugh? It was never stated how tall he was!" No, it was not stated in so...

There is no limit to the number of different dimensions that will give two cubes whose sum shall be exactly seventeen cubic inches. Here is the answer in the smallest possible n...

The other multipliers fail to produce a solution, so 83, 86, and 71 are the only three possible multipliers. Those who are familiar with the principle of recurring decimals (as...

At first sight there might appear to be some ambiguity about the words, "Everybody kissed everybody else, except, of course, the bashful young man himself." Might this not be he...