ng up the flagstaff. One wise old fellow
said:--

"They do say, Sir Knight, albeit I hold such stories as mere fables, that
the snail doth climb upwards three feet in the daytime, but slippeth back
two feet by night."

[Illustration]

"Then," replied Sir Hugh, "tell us how many days it will take this snail
to get from the bottom to the top of the pole."

"By bread and water, I much marvel if the same can be done unless we take
down and measure the staff."

"Credit me," replied the knight, "there is no need to measure the staff."

Can the reader give the answer to this version of a puzzle that we all
know so well?

40.--_Lady Isabel's Casket._

Sir Hugh's young kinswoman and ward, Lady Isabel de Fitzarnulph, was
known far and wide as "Isabel the Fair." Amongst her treasures was a
casket, the top of which was perfectly square in shape. It was inlaid
with pieces of wood, and a strip of gold ten inches long by a quarter of
an inch wide.

When young men sued for the hand of Lady Isabel, Sir Hugh promised his
consent to the one who would tell him the dimensions of the top of the
box from these facts alone: that there was a rectangular strip of gold,
ten inches by 1/4-inch; and the rest of the surface was exactly inlaid
with pieces of wood, each piece being a perfect square, and no two pieces
of the same size. Many young men failed, but one at length succeeded. The
puzzle is not an easy one, but the dimensions of that strip of gold,
combined with those other conditions, absolutely determine the size of
the top of the casket.

THE MERRY MONKS OF RIDDLEWELL

THEIR QUAINT PUZZLES AND ENIGMAS.

[Illustration]

"Friar Andrew," quoth the Lord Abbot, as he lay a-dying, "methinks I
could now rede thee the riddle of riddles--an I had--the time--and--" The
good friar put his ear close to the holy Abbot's lips, but alas! they
were silenced for ever. Thus passed away the life of the jovial and
greatly beloved Abbot of the old monastery of Riddlewell.

The monks of Riddlewell Abbey were noted in their day for the quaint
enigmas and puzzles that they were in the habit of propounding. The Abbey
was built in the fourteenth century, near a sacred spring known as the
Red-hill Well. This became in the vernacular Reddlewell and Riddlewell,
and under the Lord Abbot David the monks evidently tried to justify the
latter form by the riddles they propounded so well. The solving of
puzzles became the favourite recreatio