A man has a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage, to carry over a river, but he can only convey them one at a time, his boat being very small. How is he to manage this, so that the wolf may not be left alone with the goat, nor the goat with the cabbage? It is obvious if the wolf be left with the goat, he will eat it up; whilst if the goat be left with the cabbage, short work will be made of that classic vegetable.
Oh, how often we crossed and recrossed that river; how often we took the goat out, and put the wolf in; and how frequently we took out the wolf, and put in the goat. How we trembled for the poor man, fearing there could be no alternative for him but to sacrifice either the goat or the cabbage, or else kill the wolf. How varied and wild were our expedients, such as throwing the wolf across, sending the cabbage round by express, digging a tunnel under the bed of the river, forcing the proprietor to eat the cabbage himself, towing the goat behind the boat, and other devices too numerous to mention, all of which we were assured, by those holding the key to the mystery, were altogether inadmissible; and then when, with humbled pride, we reluctantly gave it up, how mad we were at the simplicity of the solution, which was this:
He first takes over the goat, and then returns for the wolf; he then takes back the goat, which he leaves, and takes over the cabbage, he then returns and takes over the goat All as simple as A, B, C, when you know how to do it; that knowing how to do it is the great difficulty in ninety-nine out of every hundred things in this world.
Puzzles which involve long and laborious calculation are not in our line; they are too suggestive of the school and the country room. Something like the following is good for skirmishing:
PROBLEM.
Put down four nines, so that they will make one hundred.
After a short struggle you surrender at discretion, and in an instant get the
SOLUTION.
999/9
There is no delay, no tedious figuring up; you get your answer and are ready for something fresh. Some such abstruse calculation as the following, for instance: