t she had that
day taken a certain number of eggs to market. She sold half of them to
one customer, and gave him half an egg over. She next sold a third of
what she had left, and gave a third of an egg over. She then sold a
fourth of the remainder, and gave a fourth of an egg over. Finally, she
disposed of a fifth of the remainder, and gave a fifth of an egg over.
Then what she had left she divided equally among thirteen of her friends.
And, strange to say, she had not throughout all these transactions broken
a single egg. Now, the puzzle is to find the smallest possible number of
eggs that Mrs. Covey could have taken to market. Can you say how many?

89.--_The Primrose Puzzle._

[Illustration]

Select the name of any flower that you think suitable, and that contains
eight letters. Touch one of the primroses with your pencil and jump over
one of the adjoining flowers to another, on which you mark the first
letter of your word. Then touch another vacant flower, and again jump
over one in another direction, and write down the second letter. Continue
this (taking the letters in their proper order) until all the letters
have been written down, and the original word can be correctly read round
the garland. You must always touch an unoccupied flower, but the flower
jumped over may be occupied or not. The name of a tree may also be
selected. Only English words may be used.

90.--_The Round Table._

Seven friends, named Adams, Brooks, Cater, Dobson, Edwards, Fry, and
Green, were spending fifteen days together at the seaside, and they had a
round breakfast table at the hotel all to themselves. It was agreed that
no man should ever sit down twice with the same two neighbours. As they
can be seated, under these conditions, in just fifteen ways, the plan was
quite practicable. But could the reader have prepared an arrangement for
every sitting? The hotel proprietor was asked to draw up a scheme, but he
miserably failed.

91.--_The Five Tea Tins._

Sometimes people will speak of mere counting as one of the simplest
operations in the world; but on occasions, as I shall show, it is far
from easy. Sometimes the labour can be diminished by the use of little
artifices; sometimes it is practically impossible to make the required
enumeration without having a very clear head indeed. An ordinary child,
buying twelve postage stamps, will almost instinctively say, when he sees
there are four along one side and three a