LINKING THE CHAINS
The blacksmith had five pieces of chain, each made up of three links. He wanted to join them all together in one long chain, so he broke one link in each of the first four chains, inserted a link from the next chain, and then sealed the link.
He was just finishing when his wife passed by. Seeing what he was doing, she pointed out that by breaking and joining four links, he had done more work than was necessary. How should he have joined the chains with as little work as possible?