year--my only sister, Ann, happened to be just one-quarter the age of
mother, and she is now one-third the age of father." "That's all very
well," said the teacher, "but what I want is not the age of your sister
Ann, but your own age." "I was just coming to that," Tommy answered; "I
am just a quarter of mother's present age, and in four years' time I
shall be a quarter the age of father. Isn't that funny?"

This was all the information that the teacher could get out of Tommy
Smart. Could you have told, from these facts, what was his precise age?
It is certainly a little puzzling.


49.--NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOURS.

There were two families living next door to one another at Tooting
Bec--the Jupps and the Simkins. The united ages of the four Jupps
amounted to one hundred years, and the united ages of the Simkins also
amounted to the same. It was found in the case of each family that the
sum obtained by adding the squares of each of the children's ages to the
square of the mother's age equalled the square of the father's age. In
the case of the Jupps, however, Julia was one year older than her
brother Joe, whereas Sophy Simkin was two years older than her brother
Sammy. What was the age of each of the eight individuals?


50.--THE BAG OF NUTS.

Three boys were given a bag of nuts as a Christmas present, and it was
agreed that they should be divided in proportion to their ages, which
together amounted to 17½ years. Now the bag contained 770 nuts, and