RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33279, 17 July 1973, Page 19

RANDOM REMINDER

I ALE OF A TALE

Throughout history, heroic exploits have made ready copy. Everyone has read about them. But there is a paucity of information about the nonheroes of this and earlier ages, a situation we propose to remedy, at least in part. He is just an average man: a non-hero. And when his wife telephoned him at his office to tell him that she was terrified of a mouse she had discovered in a cupboard, this was for him no call to arms. But he realised that something positive was expected of him, and

he reluctantly agreed that he should come straight home from work instead of meeting with friends to discuss this and that. The man of the house duly came to the aid of his beloved. They approached the cupboard together. She said she had seen the animal’s tail swinging at the back of the cupboard. He agreed with her finding, but he was all caution and went a little further. With a tail that size, it was either an out-size mouse, or a rat. This was not his cup of tea. But he had a friend next door who was awfully good at emer-

gencies such as this. Another telephone call, and the friend arrived, all resolve, with his torch, his hammer, and his large, hungry-looking dog. All three of them bent to the task. The dog in front, the neighbour, the man of the house, in that order. It was the neighbour who withdrew from the back of the cupboard the thin, leather belt which had caught on something and was dangling there, looking positively dangerous. And it was the man of the house who managed, all by himself, to take the top off his only bottle of beer to sustain his rescuer.