RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30171, 1 July 1963, Page 18

RANDOM REMINDER

morninc; call

When things go bump in the night most people attribute the sounds to a regurgitating cistern, revellers, an asthmatic grandfather clock, or an asthmatic grandfather There are not many who clutch the counterpane in terror, silently pleading for the Thing to go away. Fewer scream. But all the same, there is something disturbing about strange sounds at strange hours of the night, and a St Martins woman, roused from her sleep early one morning by what seemed to be oddly shuffling feet, decided the matter should be investigated. The course of action consisted. of course, only of administering a sharp elbow jolt to her hus-

band. who said it was too early to make tea. He was all for leaving it at that. But no. there were funny sounds outside the front door, and he should find out what they were. With expedition.

A swift riff through the dusty file of his conscience failed to suggest any reason why the police should be calling at such an hour, so he got up. He went to the front door. And there on the mat marked welcome, were his neighbours—a man and his wife, people of sober habits and irreproachable mien. The sounds, apparently. had come from the fact that their feet were shuffling with embarrassment.

They had. they said, carefully locked their house before they left, and had carefully left the key on the inside. Could they, they asked, with deprecating two a.m. smiles, borrow a screwdriver? The request was granted, there were smiles and farewells all round, and the man went back to bed. He told his wife what had happened and went off to sleep again. An hour later, his wife woke him again. She had been kept awake, she said, worrying about how one got into a house with a screwdriver. He told her, somewhat tersely, that he did not know. And nor, for that matter, do we.