Herr Kannstnicht—“I have a gold mine; thou hast a gold thine; he has a gold his; we, you, they have a gold ours, yours, or theirs, as the case may be.”
Prof. Goldburgmann—“You right are; up head proceed. Should I what a time pleasant have if all Herr Kannstnicht like were!”
SPENDING THEIR “ALL.”
[150.] Three men going “on the spree” decide to spend all their money. The first, A, “shouts” for the company and then gives his balance to B, who also in turn pays for 3 drinks and gives his balance to C, who can then just manage to pay for drinks once more at 6d. each. How much money had each?
[151.] There is a regiment of 7300 soldiers, which is to be divided into 4 companies—half of the first company, two-thirds of the second, three-quarters of the third, and four-fifths of the fourth—to be composed of the same number of men. How many soldiers are there in each company?
A GRAVE MISTAKE.
A Scotch tradesman, who had amassed, as he believed, £4000, was surprised at his old clerk’s showing by a balance-sheet his fortune to be £6000. “It canna be—count again,” said the old man. The clerk did count again, and again declared the balance to be £6000. Time after time he cast up the columns—it was still a 6, and not a 4, that rewarded his labours. So the old merchant, on the strength of his good fortune, modernised his house, and put money in the purse of the carpenter, the painter, and the upholsterer. Still, however, he had a lurking doubt of the existence of the extra £2000; so one winter’s night he sat down to give the columns “one count more.” At the close of his task he jumped up as though he had been galvanised, and rushed out in a shower of rain to the house of the clerk, who, capped and drowsy, put out his head from an attic window at the sound of the knocker, mumbling, “Who’s there, and what d’ye want?” “It’s me, ye scoundrel!” exclaimed his employer. “Ye’ve added up the year of our Lord amang the poons!”