To make very clear why ("18" & "32") is "10".
1) they they are both strings ,
2) "&" operator works on strings by taking each !Character! from each string and make a bit wise & between them and add this value to the resulting string
So:
"18" is made up of two characters: 0x31, 0x38
"32" is made up of two characters: 0x33, 0x32
----RESULT-----
0x31 & 0x33 = 0x31 => "1"
0x38 & 0x32 = 0x30 => "0"
and the result is "10" which is 100% correct.