The Waiter

Three men in a cafe order a meal the total cost of which is $15. They each contribute $5. The waiter takes the money to the chef who recognises the three as friends and asks the waiter to return $5 to the men.

The waiter is not only poor at mathematics but dishonest and instead of going to the trouble of splitting the $5 between the three he simply gives them $1 each and pockets the remaining $2 for himself.

Now, each of the men effectively paid $4, the total paid is therefore $12. Add the $2 in the waiters pocket and this comes to $14. Where has the other $1 gone from the original $15?




Similar Riddles

Let's play a word game. Following are some meaningless words that can be completed by adding random letters on either side of the word.

For example, the word "rdo" can be formed into "pardon".

Using the same technique, can you complete the given words?
ecalc
airb
rinci
tibac
uidel
gorit
igna
eyho

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Find The Next Number in the series:

12 13 15 17 111 113 117 119 123 ?

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Wednesday, Steve and Pam go to a restaurant to eat lunch. After eating lunch, they pay the bill. But Steve and Pam do not pay the bill. So…who does?

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Below, you can see three complete equations and one incomplete. Based on the three complete ones, can you complete the incomplete one?

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6 $ 9 $ 2 $ 6 = 3816
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7 $ 2 $ 7 $ 4 = ____

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Can you make numbers like 24, using numbers 3,3,7 & 7 with any arithmetic operator?

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Rose, Lily and Jasmine decided to buy flowers for their moms on Mother's Day. One of them bought lilies, the other roses, and the third one jasmines.
'It's funny!' said the girl with roses, 'we bought roses, jasmines and lilies, but none of us bought the flowers matching her name'.
'You're right!', said Lily.
What kind of flowers did each of the girls buy?

Asked by Neha on 07 Apr 2025


There was once a college that offered a class on probability applied to the real world. The class was relatively easy, but there was a catch. There were no homework assignments or tests, but there was a final exam that would have only one question on it. When everyone received the test paper it was a blank sheet of paper with a solitary question on it: 'What is the risk?'.Most students were able to pass, but only one student received 100% for the class! Even stranger was that he only wrote down one word!
What did he write?

Asked by Neha on 03 Sep 2023

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Amazing Facts

Word ladder puzzle

The word ladder puzzle was invented by Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.