[size=16]The Answer[/size]
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The correct answer is 12, I think.
Banjax got the reasoning right, then the answer wrong, then right, then wrong again.
The man in question will not wear brown, white or scruffy shoes with a blue suit. So there can be 8 discarded shoes before the first acceptable shoe appears. The worst case is that he then picks out 3 right tidy black shoes before a left shoe is pulled out, and that would be the 12th shoe to be pulled out.
The man in question has just been upstairs and observed that there are 10 shoes scattered across the bedroom floor. The white shoes remain under the bed because they were known to be at the end of the line of shoes, and, in any case, they're made of canvas and don't feel like a leather shoes.
I wonder what happened to my beige shoes? I know I took them on holiday. They must be in the cupboard.
