The Junior Clerk's Puzzle

Two youths, bearing the pleasant names of Moggs and Snoggs, were employed as junior clerks by a merchant in Mincing Lane. They were both engaged at the same salary--that is, commencing at the rate of £50 a year, payable half-yearly. Moggs had a yearly rise of £10, and Snoggs was offered the same, only he asked, for reasons that do not concern our puzzle, that he might take his rise at £2, 10s. half-yearly, to which his employer (not, perhaps, unnaturally!) had no objection.

Now we come to the real point of the puzzle. Moggs put regularly into the Post Office Savings Bank a certain proportion of his salary, while Snoggs saved twice as great a proportion of his, and at the end of five years they had together saved £268, 15s. How much had each saved? The question of interest can be ignored.

H. E. Dudeney, Amusements in Mathematics (1917) · No. 26