Yes it's 24. Here is why: ABCDE -FGHI ----- 11111 It's clear that there can't be any "borrowing" in the subtraction. It's clear that A can only be 1. So B-F = C-G = D-H = E-I = 1 and: {(B,F),(C,G),(D,H),(E,I)} c {(3,2),(4,3),(5,4),(6,5),(7,6),(8,7),(9,8)} We can't use (8,7) because then we'd have to use (6,5), and (4,3), but that wouldn't allow us to use 9 or 2. So we can only use (9,8), (7,6), (5,4) and (3,2) Here is the smallest possibility: 13579 -2468 ----- 11111 There are 4!=24 ways to rearrange the last 4 columns that go after the first one. The first column can only be: 1 _ 1 Then there are 4!=24 ways we can arrange these 4 column after it: 3, 5, 7, 9 2, 4, 6, 8 -, -, -, - 1, 1, 1, 1 Edwin