RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33121, 11 January 1973, Page 6

RANDOM REMINDER

FRAILTY

Honest men suffer torments of remorse if they are ever overtaken by human frailty and commit the sin of prevarication. Some people can tell a dozen lies a dav and sleep easily at night. Other simple souls have consciences.

The man who brings this to blind is a garage proprietor. He told a lie.

More than that: he told it to five nuns, and that, he feels, makes it verv much worse. Especially does he feel remorse because he has not recanted. He simply can't. The five nuns were together in a car which

pulled up at his garage. One of the nuns alighted and told him that a front tyre had been making a funny noise. Would he check it? The cause of the trouble was obvious at a glance The tread had lifted in cne place like a banana skin, and it had been flapping. But then a more serious flaw was discovered. A pool of liquid was on ’he ground, evidently seentng from the damaged tyre. The nun who was the spokesman was concerned, and curious. Why. she asked, was liquid put into tyres anyway?

The garage man. a quick

thinker, remembered that tractor tyres are filled with water to give added weight and so without batting an eyelid put forward the proposition that the makers always advocated the addition of liquid to car tyres to assist in cooling.

He also took the opportunity, when the car passengers were not looking, to dispose effectively of the mongrel which, having finished at the front, was about to operate on a rear tyre.

But as a professing Presbyterian. his conscience is troubling him.