Bicycle Thieves

     A friend of mine runs a bicycle shop and he narrated to me this following story. 

  A man, who looked like a tourist, came to his shop one day and bought a bicycle from him for Rs.350. The cost price of the bicycle was Rs. 300 So my friend was happy that he had made a profit of Rs. 50 on the sale. However, at the time of settling the bill, the tourist offered to pay in travelers’ cheques as he had no cash money with him. My friend hesitated. He had no arrangement with the banks to encash travelers’ cheques. But he remembered that the shopkeeper next door has such a provision, and so he took the cheques to his friend next door and got cash from him.

  The travelers’ cheques were all of Rs. 100 each and so he had taken four cheques from the tourist totaling to Rs. 400. On encasing them my friend paid back the tourist the balance of Rs. 50

  The tourist happily climbed the bicycle and pedaled away whistling a tune. 

   However, the next morning my friend’s neighbor, who had taken the travelers cheques to the bank called on him and returned the cheques to the bank, called on him and returned the cheques which had proved valueless and demanded the refund of his money. My friend quietly refunded the money to his neighbor and tried to trace the tourist who had given him the worthless cheques and taken away his bicycle, but the tourist could not be found. 

  How much did my friend lose altogether in this unfortunate transaction?

Answer:  One can think of different answers for this question but yet the correct answer is very simple. All we have to consider is that the shop owner could not have      possibly lost more than the tourist actually stole.

               The tourist got away with the bicycle which cost the shop owner Rs. 300 and the Rs. 50 ‘change’ and therefore he made off with Rs.350. And this is the exact amount of the shopkeeper’s loss.