A friend of Quiz Master Shop's told us a curious tale about joining a secret society. We thought that it did not seem very secret, but as you will see, he did not join.
Having passed all the entry requirements he met the membership secretary to register and receive his welcome pack. When he gave his name as Morris the membership secretary looked very concerned. I'm afraid that you can't be called Morris within the society, as your membership number has already been allocated.
The membership secretary consulted the list of members and their numbers in the register of members. He read from the list "Hotson, Watson, Snooks - your membership number would be the same as Watson's number, and that cannot happen"
The membership secretary suggested that Morris change his name to Wister. In that way he would not clash with Watson and his membership number would come next after Snooks. However, Morris refused to change his name and was not allowed to join the society.
Worse still he was not told the system for allocating membership numbers to the members, and still does not know what the problem was.
Can you help him - can you explain the numbers of Hotson, Watson, Snooks, Morris, and the non-existent Wister?
The society used a simple code of A=1, B=2 and so on. Adding up the letters in the members names gives:
Hotson = 91
Watson = 92
Morris = 92
Snooks = 93
Wister = 94