nings on the table, five consecutive lucky guesses would give you
almost a million and a half of dollars, or, to be exact, $1,450,625.52?

Yet that would be the result of winning thirty-five for one five times
hand-running.

Here is another example. Take the number 15, let us say. Multiply that by
itself, and you get 225. Now multiply 225 by itself, and so on until
fifteen products have been multiplied by themselves in turn.

You don't think that is a difficult problem? Well, you may be a clever
mathematician, but it would take you about a quarter of a century to work
out this simple little sum.

The final product called for contains 38,589 figures, the first of which
are 1,442. Allowing three figures to an inch, the answer would be more
than a thousand feet long. To perform the operation would require about
500,000,000 figures. If they can be made at the rate of one a minute, a
person working ten hours a day for three hundred days in each year would
be twenty-eight years about it.

NUMBERS THAT EQUIVOCATED.

The _Woman's Home Companion_ repeats a good story that is told of a
quick-witted Irishman with a natural aptitude for mental arithmetic who
was working in a field with a Dutchman, when they unearthed a box of
silver coins. The covetous Dutchman at once laid claim to the whole booty,
because he was the first to break it open and discover its valuable
contents.

"Go softly," said the Irishman, "for the whole business is mine. It's a
bit of money that was left me by an uncle, and I buried it here for
safe-keeping. There was a thousand dollars."

"All right with that," replied the Dutchman, as he caught on to the bait.
"If you tell me how much money there is, it's with you; if you miss, she's
mine."

"That's fair, and you have the sentiments of a gentleman," replied Pat, as
he made a quick mental calculation from the weight of the box that there
must be somewhere between fifty and three hundred and fifty dollars. "I
sent six hundred and forty-two dollars and fifty-three cents to my mother
in the old country, so add that amount to what there is in the box."

"That is done so quick," said the Dutchman.

"Then deduct that amount from the sum of one thousand dollars, which was
left me," said Pat.

"Done again," said the Dutchman.

"Now deduct those figures from three hundred and fifty-seven dollars and
forty-seven cents, which I had to pay the lawyers, and it leaves the exact
amount to one cent that you w