Query

From Gerald Lynton Kaufman’s The Book of Modern Puzzles (1954):

All DROONS are the same size and shape.All green SLACKENS are the same size and shape.Twenty DROONS just fill up a MULDRUFF.All WALLAXES contain green SLACKENS.A green SLACKEN is 10% bigger than a DROON.A WALLAX is smaller than a MULDRUFF.

“If all MULDRUFFS and all WALLAXES are predominantly RED throughout, what is the largest possible number of green SLACKENS in a WALLAX?”

Eight. If a MULDRUFF holds 20 DROONS, and a green SLACKEN is 10% bigger than a DROON, then a MULDRUFF can accommodate at most 18 green SLACKENS. And if a WALLAX is smaller than this, then it can hold at most 17 green SLACKENS. But if each WALLAX is predominantly red, then the proportion of green SLACKENS in its contents can’t be more than one-half. So the largest number of green SLACKENS it can contain is 8.