Crooks, an inveterate gambler, at Goodwood recently said to a friend,
"I'll bet you half the money in my pocket on the toss of a coin--heads I
win, tails I lose." The coin was tossed and the money handed over. He
repeated the offer again and again, each time betting half the money
then in his possession. We are not told how long the game went on, or
how many times the coin was tossed, but this we know, that the number of
times that Crooks lost was exactly equal to the number of times that he
won. Now, did he gain or lose by this little venture?


122.--THE SEE-SAW PUZZLE.

Necessity is, indeed, the mother of invention. I was amused the other
day in watching a boy who wanted to play see-saw and, in his failure to
find another child to share the sport with him, had been driven back
upon the ingenious resort of tying a number of bricks to one end of the
plank to balance his weight at the other.

As a matter of fact, he just balanced against sixteen bricks, when these
were fixed to the short end of plank, but if he fixed them to the long
end of plank he only needed eleven as balance.

Now, what was that boy's weight, if a brick weighs equal to a
three-quarter brick and three-quarters of a pound?


123.--A LEGAL DIFFICULTY.

"A client of mine," said a lawyer, "was on the point of death when his