The Three Matches.
With your penknife slit one end of a match, and trim that of another into a wedge shape. Insert this latter into the split end of the former, so that the two shall form an acute angle. Place them on the table, the angle upward, and prop them up by leaning another match against them, the whole forming a tripod, as shown in the figure. Now hand a fourth match to one of the company, and request him to lift with it the other three from the table. Such is the problem to be resolved. All that you have to do is to insert the fourth match just inside the point of the tripod, between the two conjoined and the single match; and with it to press the two joined matches lightly outward till the third falls with its upper end on the one you hold. You lower this till the end of the single match passes within the angle formed by the juncture of the two first. If you then raise the match you hold in your hand, the three others will ride astride upon it, the single match on the one side, the two joined matches on the other. The table used should have a cloth on it, that the lower ends of the matches may not slip. Some little delicacy of handling is needful to make the single match fall just in the right position, but this once achieved, the three thus slightly supported might be carried a mile without any fear of dropping them.