[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
Ok lets see if I can do this correctly.

3 men rent a room at a local hotel
The hotel owner charges each man $10.00 for a total of $30.00 for the night
Later the hotel owner decides to cut the men a break and gives the Bellhop $5.00 and tells him to give it to the men.
The Bellhop decides to keep $2.00 for himself and gives each man $1.00 back.
This now means that each man paid $9.00 for his part of the room. $9.00 x 3 men = $27.00 + the $2.00 the Bellhop kept comes to a grand total of $29.00. What happend to the Last $1.00?

I know the answer to this riddle so it can be answered. Have fun.

Nothing - it's a counting problem. After the $5 rebate, the total charge was $25. The belhop added a $2 tip on top of that, resulting in the $27 figure (which matches - each renter paid $10, and got $1 back, resulting in each paying $9 overall). Adding the $2 back into the number to bring it up to $29 is counting the belhop's cut twice - you can't do that, so we still stand at $27. The Last $1.00 went to the renters, as did two others.

[ July 22, 2003, 07:09: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]