A man walks into the market followed by his ten-year-old son. The child amuses himself by repeatedly spinning a 10 pence coin in the air and catching it between his teeth. As they walk through the market, someone bumps into the boy at just the wrong moment and the coin goes straight into his mouth and lodges in his throat.
He chokes at once and begins to go blue in the face. His father, panicking at the sight of the gasping boy, shouts and screams for help. A middle-aged, fairly unremarkable man in a grey suit is sitting at a coffee bar in the market reading his newspaper and sipping a cup of coffee. At the sound of the commotion he looks up, puts his coffee cup down on the saucer, neatly folds his newspaper and places it on the counter. He rises from his seat and makes his unhurried way across the market.
Reaching the choking child (who is still standing, but just barely), the man carefully takes hold of the boy's testicles with his right hand and squeezes gently but firmly. A few seconds later the boy convulses violently and coughs up the coin, which the man catches in his free hand. Releasing the boy, the man hands the coin to the father and walks back to his seat in the coffee bar without saying a word.
As soon as he is sure that his son has suffered no lasting ill effects, the father rushes over to the man and begins thanking him effusively. The man looks embarrassed and brushes off the father's thanks. As he's about to leave, the father asks one last question: "I've never seen anybody do anything like that before - it was fantastic - what are you, a surgeon or something like that?"
"Oh, good heavens, no", the man replies, "I work for the Income Tax Department."
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