Henry Ernest Dudeney/Puzzles and Curious Problems/362 - Intelligence Tests/Solution

Puzzles and Curious Problems by Henry Ernest Dudeney: $362$

An English officer fell asleep in church during a sermon.

He was dreaming that the executioner was approaching him to cut off his head,

and just as the sword was descending on the officer's unhappy neck

his wife lightly touched her husband on the back of his neck with her fan to awaken him.

The shock was too great, and the officer fell forward dead.

Now, there is something wrong with this.

What is it?

Another such question goes along these lines:

If we sell apples by the cubic inch,

how can we really find the exact number of cubic inches in, say, a dozen dozen apples?

As the dreamer never woke from his dream, he cannot possibly have been able to relate it to anyone.

So nobody could have known anything about it.

Hence the story must have been a complete invention.

As for the question about the apples: dunk them in water and measure the runoff.