Harry the Miser


Harry was a miserly little hermit. He was so miserly that he would not even purchase the candles he used to read by each night. Instead he would steal his way through town, collecting the remains of others' melted candle drippings. Harry used the drippings of seven candles to make one new candle, which gave him one night of reading.

During one night of candle-drippings-collecting, Harry visited the town hospital and collected twelve drippings. He then went over to the library and scraped nine candle drippings into his sack. A large cathedral provided Harry with thirteen drippings and the butcher's shop provided him five more. At the tax collector's office he pulled out his knife to scrape the remains of six more candles into his sack. Last stop was the little chapel where he got four more drippings.

How many nights of reading light did Harry get from the candle drippings he collected that night?

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Last updated October 10th, 2003