“That is easy enough,” said Kate; and writing down the figures from one to thirty, she counted off every ninth one, and found that the Christians and Turks were arranged as follows:—
CCCC, TTTTT, CC, T, CCC, T, C, TT, CC, TTT, C, TT, CC, T.
“Let me propose the next puzzle,” said Aunt Fanny. “What English word of seven letters can be so transposed as to make over fifty different words?”
No one could solve this question, and when the word “weather” was named, as the answer, the children could hardly credit the fact that it was so prolific, until they had each made out a list of words. Throwing out quite a number that were obtained by using a single letter more than once, the following long list remained, which perhaps does not exhaust the subject:—
| We, | Where, | Ewe, | Tea, | Her, | Here, |
| Wet, | Wreath, | Ere, | Tear, | He, | Hare, |
| War, | Wrath, | At, | Tree, | Ha, | Heat, |
| Wart, | Water, | Ah, | Thaw | Hat, | Haw, |
| Were, | Ear, | Ate, | Tare, | Hate, | Hew, |
| Wear, | Eat, | Art, | Tar, | Hater, | Rat, |
| What, | Eater, | Awe, | There, | Hart, | Rate, |
| Whet, | Earth, | Are, | Three, | Heart, | Raw, |
| Wheat. | Ether. | The. | Taw. | Hear. | Re-wet. |
“There, I have made forty angles with only five straight lines,” said Kate, holding up a slip of paper; “can any body beat that?”
“Let me try,” said Marcus; and in a few minutes he pushed towards Kate the accompanying figure, remarking, “There, I’ve made only six lines, and if I’ve counted right, there are sixty angles.”
While the others were amusing themselves with angles, Oscar made the annexed sketch, and now passed it to the others, giving out with it the following problem: