A. Cyril Pearson

“ A PROVERB IN ANAGRAM
Can you recast the letters of this sentence into a well-known English proverb?
Yea, a glad sun rose red.
Solution
248. ANSWER BY ANAGRAM
Has there been a poet of unusual solemnity?
Solution
249. ANAGRAM ENIGMA
No, no, I hardly ever touch
The thing which many love so much.
It has a place within these lines,
But is taboo where Delia dines.
Solution
250. HE SQUARED THE CIRCLE
“Yes,” said young Biceps of St Boniface, who had failed to satisfy the examiners, “they have ploughed me in Euclid, and yet if I had half a chance I could teach them how to square a circle!” ”

“ In addition to the singularly appropriate anagram that has been so happily attached to the name of Florence Nightingale, Flit on, cheering angel, the same group of letters can be recast as an aspiration for her continuance in our loving memory, so that they form the sentence, Cling on, feeling heart. ”

“ Each word or group of words in italics forms, when the letters are shuffled and recast as an anagram, a military title. Can you decipher them?
Solution
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178. A CHARADE
My first transposed becomes a name
Which may quite mean be reckoned,
Two syllables combine the same,
With one or two for second.
My whole when fields are fresh and green,
And softly blows the wind,
Where the first signs of spring are seen
Within the woods we find.
Solution
179. AN ANAGRAM ENIGMA
Silent long is the wood-bird’s song,
Bare is the woodland bough ”

“ The tutor came to the conclusion that there is nothing in Ecclesiastical Law to prevent the Pope from burying the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the undergraduate who had proposed the question demurred to this reply; pressed for his reason he said, as his face broke into a smile, “He cannot do so, because the Archbishop is not dead!”
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153
The proverb buried in the sentence, “While there are very many as kind as this, they know no task unkind,” is, “Let every man skin his own skunk.” ”

“ Solution
[10]
No. X.—A DOMINO MAGIC SQUARE
In this magic square the rows, columns, and diagonals add up always to 33.
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Can you rearrange it so that the first stone (three-ace) shall occupy the centre, now filled by the double six, and it shall still add up in all ways to 33?
Solution
6. SHIFTING LETTERS
I am bright as a whole
Till you cut off my head;
Then as black as a coal,
Or a mortal instead.
Shaken up and recast
We with science are found,
Read us back from the last
And we live underground. ”

“ Solution
54. COUNTING THE GEESE (From an old Sanscrit source, quoted by Longfellow in his “Kavanagh.”)
Ten times the square root of a flock of geese, seeing the clouds collect, flew to the Manus lake. One-eighth of the whole flew from the edge of the water among a tangle of water lilies, and three couples were seen playing in the water. Tell me, my young girl with beautiful locks, what was the whole number of geese? ”

“ Strange weather! What could equal it? Yesterday sunshine and soft breezes, to-day a summer cyclone raging noisily; then other changes, as floods of fiercest rain eddy beneath the blast.
is “The quality of mercy is not strained.” ”

“ When you have told someone to think of a number between 5 and 15, and while you are not looking, to count upwards from the lowest card step, and round in the direction indicated by the arrow, until that number is reached, and then, starting afresh with “one” on that card to count backwards round the semi-circle, this time not including the central upright or the steps below it, until the number thought of is again reached, [277] you can tell at once which is the final card arrived at, for it will be as many places upwards on the left as there are step cards and their upright. ”

“ The word square is recast thus—
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Its words are spelt with the same letters as the words chess, greed, canes, rears, cheer, which formed the original square, but did not read alike from top to bottom, and from left to right, as these do.
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No. XLIII
The five familiar proverbs hidden in this square of 169 letters are: A rolling stone gathers no moss. Too many cooks spoil the broth. A live dog is more to be feared than a dead lion. You cannot eat your cake and have it. Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war. ”

“ Solution
[11]
No. XI.—CHESS AND NUMBERS
The arrangement of numbers in the 36 cells of this square discloses a very close affinity between chess and arithmetic.
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Can you follow this out?
Solution
7. A GOOD CHARADE
By Horace Smith, one of the authors of “Rejected Addresses.”
In arts and sciences behold my first the watchword still,
All prejudice must bend the knee before its iron will;
Yet “Onward!” is the Briton’s cry—a cry that doth express
A holy work but half begun, and speaks of hopefulness. ”

“ A PRIZE ANAGRAM
“Truth” offered a prize for the best anagram on the sentence—“‘Truth’ Toy and Doll Fund, Christmas, nineteen hundred and seven.” The winning anagram, by the Editor of these pages, was, “A sunny tender mind understands that the children do love fun!”
37. TAKE CARE OF THE PENCE
In a moment of economy I told my wife that I would put by a farthing the first week of the New Year, a halfpenny the second week, a penny the third, and so on, doubling the sum each week to the end of the year. ”

“ When Tom declared that he could give his sister quite a simple sentence of seven common English words of one syllable, which she could not produce on her typewriter, he had in his mind, “We can spell (to, too, two) in three ways,” which cannot, of course, be expressed in seven written words.
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169 The French charade—
Mon premier est un tyran, mon second un horreur,
Mon tout est le diable lui-même.
Mais si mon premier est bon, mon second ne fait rien,
Et mon tout est le bonheur suprême. ”

“ Lewis Carroll turns WHEAT into BREAD, changing one letter each time, and preserving their general order throughout, thus—
WHEAT; cheat; cheap; cheep; creep; creed; breed; BREAD.
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15
Unity is a probable solution of the old enigma, part of which evidently refers to “a house divided against itself”—
I’m one among a numerous host,
And very useful in my post;
There’s not a house in all the land
Without me properly can stand. ”

“ Solution
[28]
No. XXVIII.—A FEAT WITHOUT ARMS
In this picture a clever artist who has no arms is seen calmly painting with his feet.
One onlooker says to another, “Why, now I see this fine artist has no hand!” The other replies in a sentence which contains exactly the same letters:
“He draws in any fashion .... ... ... ... .” ”

“ As Biceps could not tell how to extract a circle from a square, his friend gave him the following solution: “Let the given square be Sloane Square; find the Inner Circle, and take its lines to any point, at any distance from that square, paying the proper fare. That’s the ticket!”
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252
Every Cretan is said to lie,
And steeds that canter pant.
The gods drank nectar, old and dry,
And all men may recant. ”

“ If you ask a schoolboy to estimate the value of the grass in a triangular field, of which the longest side measures 100 rods, and each of the other sides 50 rods, at £1 per acre, it may take him some little time to see that he is being sold, since the condition is not fulfilled that any two sides of a triangle must be greater than the third side. ”

“ The English proverb which is concealed under its anagram—
“I dare not admit faint women,”
is Time and tide wait for no man.
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192 The charade—
My first and second are as best they should be,
My third in Latin mouth is what it would be,
My whole would soon be ashes if it could be.
is solved by Asbestos (os is Latin for mouth) .
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193
Since Spooks, a subtle man is he,
Sublet this haunted house to me,
In bluest funk I bustle round,
And fear a ghost in every sound.
The four words in italics have the same letters. ”

“ Draw a square of nine cells with diagonals, fill the three top cells, as is shown, by multiplying the 5 by the 3, the 4 and the 2. Then multiply in similar way the 3 and the 4 by these same figures. Turn the square round so that the diagonals are upright, and add. Of course, placing the numbers thus is the same practically as carrying them by our ordinary rule.
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No. LXVI
In this diagram 27 counters are arranged in 9 rows, with 6 in each row.
Can you rearrange them so that with similar conditions they all fall within the borders of one equilateral triangle? ”

“ Drive the screw into a board, through the middle of a card, wind the thread down the screw so that its loop just reaches the card, place a pencil in this loop, and draw the spiral freely, unwinding the thread from the grooves of the screw, and keeping it always taut. A perfect spiral is the result. ”

“ Can you complete this word square?
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Solution
12. IS IT POSSIBLE?
Fill a wineglass with water to the brim, and set it on the corner of a table-napkin, which should be in immediate contact with the polished surface of a table, allowing the rest of the napkin to fall over the edge. Can you remove the napkin without touching the glass or spilling any of the water? ”

“ An empty larder?
is solved thus—
FOWL IS FARE.
Wind that blows foul and chops about,
With lighter puffs,
And finds the thirsty sailor stout,
Brings food enough!
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121 The enigma—
I lose my head when I am here,
Transpose me I am three;
Look in a book, you find me there,
And with me her and he—
is solved by There.
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122
Jack did declaim that he could square
The circle to a decimal;
His friends claimed that a brain so rare
Required attention medical.
The words in italics are spelt with the same letters. ”

“ The sentence “Woman without her man would be helpless” takes on a distinct meaning if the words “without her” are read together, and a comma is placed after “woman.” Thus—“Woman, without her man would be helpless.” ”

“ Taking the letters as arranged on this diagram for a starting point, can you place in some of the unoccupied cells five more of A, five of E, five of I, and five of O, making eight in all of each letter, so that in no case shall the same vowel be in the same row, column, or diagonal?
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Each vowel is to be regarded without any reference to the other vowels, and, of course, only one may be placed in a cell. ”

“ Six horse ’buses and four motor ’buses travel each hour from Temple Bar to the Bank. The horses take 15 minutes, and the motors 10 minutes on the journey.
If I come to Temple Bar, and wish to reach the Bank as soon as possible, shall I take the first horse ’bus that turns up, or wait for a motor? It must be assumed that I can only see a ’bus as it actually passes me—
is (1) Take a motor if it comes first.
is (2) Take a horse ’bus if it comes first, and comes within 21⁄2 minutes of waiting.
is (3) Wait for a motor if a horse ’bus comes first, but does not come till after 21⁄2 minutes. ”

“ The shepherd who had folded his flock with 100 hurdles, and whose master bade him the next day use 16 of these to pen some pigs, and to enclose nine times as many sheep with the remaining 84 as the 100 had contained, had originally placed the hurdles in two rows of 49 each, with one hurdle at each end. He made room for nine times as many sheep within 84 hurdles by arranging them in a square, with 21 on every side, thus increasing the area ninefold. ”

“ The stones must be so arranged that the number of pips in any row or column are in all cases exactly three times the number of half-dominoes of which that line or column is composed. There are many solutions to exercise the solver’s patience. ”

“ Ireland’s lot heals slowly. Troubles came long ago—at times in battalions—to attack and harass her. Ambitious democrats now countermine famous enthusiasts nearly akin to heroes. Anarchy enables cowards to sow hot terror and all amazement, are—
eland, sloth, camel, goat, bat, lion, stoat, ass, ram, fat, ermine, mouse, yak, roe, hyena, cow, sow, otter and llama. ”

“ Solution
[81]
No. LXXXI.—A NEST OF TRIANGLES
In the “Twentieth Century Standard Puzzle Book” we gave a figure similar to this, in which there were 653 interlacing triangles in four tiers of this character.
We now add a fifth tier at the base, and ask our solvers to determine how many triangles of all shapes and sizes can be counted within its enlarged borders. ”

“ There are no fewer than 40 distinct readings of the four words which form the square—
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DELF and FLED have each four straight readings, while EVIL and LIVE can each be traced in 16 different ways, and the four words run straight from every side of the square.
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4
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5
When a man gave a sovereign to his son to be spent on presents of different values for him and his three sisters, each to cost an aliquot part of the pound, and each to be as good as possible ”