THE CANTERBURY PUZZLES
" They form only four rows instead of five, and you have moved
six of them," explained the Professor.
" Hawkhurst," said Grigsby, severely, "you are a duffer. I see
the solution at a glance. Here you are ! These two jump on their
comrades' backs."
" No, no," admonished the Professor. "That is not allowed. I
distinctly said that the jumps were to be made upon the table.
Sometimes it passes the wit of man to so word the conditions of a
problem that the quibbler will not persuade himself that he has found
a flaw through which the solution may be mastered by a child of
five."
After we had been vainly puzzling with these batrachian lovers
for some time, the Professor revealed his secret.
The Professor gathered up his Japanese reptiles and wished us
good-night with the usual seasonable compliments. We three who
remained had one more pipe together, and then also left for our
respective homes. Each believes that the other two racked their
brains over Christmas in the determined attempt to master the
Professor's puzzles, but when we next met at the club we were all
unanimous in declaring that those puzzles which we had failed to
solve " we really had not had time to look at," while those we had
mastered after an enormous amount of labour " we had seen at the
first glance directly we got home."
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