[VARIETIES.]
It Strikes one as Remarkable.
A train starts daily, let us say, from San Francisco to New York, and one daily from New York to San Francisco, the journey lasting seven days. How many trains will a traveller meet in journeying from San Francisco to New York?
It appears obvious at the first glance that the traveller must meet seven trains—and that is the answer which will be given by nine girls out of ten to whom the question is new.
The fact is overlooked that every day during the journey a fresh train is starting from the other end, whilst there are seven on the way to begin with. The traveller will, therefore, meet not seven trains but fourteen.
The Two Sacks.
"At our birth, the satirical elves
Two sacks from our shoulders suspend:
The one holds the faults of ourselves;
The other, the faults of our friend.
The first we wear under our clothes
Out of sight, out of mind, at the back;
The last is so under our nose,
We know every scrap in the sack."
Imitated from Phædrus.
In Debt for Ever.
A man who owes a shilling, proceeds to pay it at the rate of sixpence the first day, threepence the second day, three half-pence the next, three farthings the next, and so on—paying each day half the amount he paid the day before.