Three men rented a room in an inn and paid the manager $30. The manager later realized that the room rental was $25. He gave the bellboy $5 and told him to return them to the three men. Seeing that they could not divide $5 equally among themselves, the bellboy kept $2 for himself and returned $3 to the three men.

Now each man had paid $9 for the room and the bellboy had kept $2. The total amount of money was

    $9 x 3 + $2 = $29

Where was the other $1?

The question this puzzle asks misleads you into thinking that there is $1 missing. In fact, the puzzle is built on wrong logic. Instead of $30, the three men could have given a $100 bill to the manager who then returned $73 for change and kept $2 for himself. The three men had paid $27 for rent, $25 went into the inn's account and $2 in the manager's pocket. Why should any of these three numbers, 27, 25 and 2 add up to be 100?

In this puzzle, three men had paid $27, of which the manager had kept $25 and the bellboy $2. The two dollars kept by the bellboy is part of the $27 paid by the men.

    $27 = $25 + $2