The Airplane Bet

A know-it-all lawyer with a wireless laptop and a mathematecian were sitting next to each other on a long airline flight. The lawyer leaned over to the mathematicain and asked whether he would like to play a game. The mathematician only wanted to sleep, so he declined, and rolled over to nap.

The lawyer insisted stating that the game was easy and fun. He explained "I'll ask you a question - if you can't answer, you pay me ten dollars. Then you ask me a question, if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you ten dollars."

The mathematican again refused and tried to nap. The lawyer, somewhat frustrated, said, "OK, if you don't know the answer you pay me ten dollars, but if I don't know the right answer, I'll pay you one hundred dollars!"

This peeked the mathematican's interest, and - seeing no end to his agitation - agreed to play. The lawyer asked the first question:
"What's the distance between the Earth and Mars?"

The engineer wordlessly reached into his wallet, pulled out a ten and handed it to the lawyer.

Now it was the mathematician's turn. He asked the lawyer: "What goes up a hill with two legs, and comes down on three?" The lawyer looked befuddled, then took out his laptop computer and searched through all his databases. He tapped into the Internet with his wirless modem and Googled it to no avail. Then he E-mail blasted all of his brightest colleagues with inquiries, but no one had the anaswer.

After an hour or so he woke the mathematician and forked over $100. The mathematican accepted the money politely and went back to napping.

The lawyer, angry and frustrated, shook the mathematican's shoulder and demanded, "So, what's the answer?".
The mathematician just smiled, reached into his wallet, handed the lawyer ten bucks and went back to his nap.