28 The Chess Board W. all know that a chess board has 64 squares. This can be completely covered by 32 cardboard rectang- les, each cardboard covering just 2 squares Supposing we remove 2 squares of the chess board at diagonally opposite corners, can we cover the modi- fied board with 31 rectangles? If it can be done. how can we do it? And if it cannot be done. prove it impossible. 29 The Game of Cats and Mice A number of cats got together and decided to kili between them 999919 mice. Every cat killed an equal number of mice. How many cats do you think there were? Oh, by the way let me clarify just two points: it is not one cat killed the lot, because | have said ‘Cats’ and it is not 999919 cats each killed one mouse. because [ have used the word ‘mice’ I can give you just one clue—each cat killed more mice than there were cats. 25