My Uncle Oswald

'Vy vould anybody vish to feed deese little red bomegranate tings to a rat?' the German Ambassador asked.

'Give him a chance, Wolfgang,' Sir Charles said to the German. 'Let him finish. I want to know what happened.' He nodded for me to go on.

'You see, sir,' I said, 'Professor Yousoupoff had in the laboratory a lot of white rats. He took the one hundred tiny red particles and fed every one of them to a single large healthy male rat. He did this by inserting them, under a microscope, into a piece of meat. He then put the rat in a cage together with ten female rats. I remember very clearly how the Professor and I stood beside the cage watching the male rat. It was late afternoon and we were so excited we had forgotten all about lunch.'

'Excuse me one moment, please,' the clever French Foreign Minister said. 'But why were you so excited? What made you think that anything was going to happen with this rat?'

Here we go, I thought. I knew I'd have to watch this wily Frenchman. 'I was excited, sir, simply because the Professor was excited,' I said. 'He seemed to know something was going to happen. I can't tell you how. Don't forget, gentlemen, I was only a very young junior assistant. The Professor did not tell me all his secrets.'

'I see,' the Foreign Minister said. 'Then let us proceed.'

'Yes, sir,' I said. 'Well, we were

watching the rat. At first, nothing happened. Then suddenly, after exactly nine minutes, the rat became very still. He crouched down, quivering all over. He was looking at the females. He crept toward the nearest one and grabbed her by the skin of her neck with his teeth and mounted her. It did not take long. He was very fierce with her and very swift. But here's the extraordinary thing. The moment the rat had finished copulating with the first female, he grabbed a second one and set about her in just the same way. Then he took a third female rat, and a fourth and a fifth. He was absolutely tireless. He went from one female to another, fornicating with each in turn until he had covered all ten of them. Even then, gentlemen, he hadn't had enough!'

'Good gracious me!' Sir Charles murmured. 'What a curious experiment.'

'I should add,' I went on, 'that rats are not normally promiscuous creatures. They are in fact rather moderate in their sexual habits.'

'Are you sure of that?' the French Foreign Minister said. 'I thought rats were extraordinarily lascivious.'

'No, sir,' I answered firmly. 'Rats are actually very intelligent and gentle creatures. They are easy to domesticate.'

'Go on, then,' Sir Charles said. 'What did all this tell you?'

'Professor Yousoupoff got very excited. "Oswaldsky!" he shouted - that's what he called me. "Oswaldsky, my boy, I think I have discovered the absolutely greatest most powerful sexual stimulant in the whole history of mankind!"

' "I think you have, too," I said. We were still standing by the cage of rats and the male rat was still leaping on the wretched females, one after the other. Within an hour, he had collapsed from exhaustion. "We give him too big a dose," the Professor said.'

'This rat,' the Mexican Ambassador said, 'what came of him in the end?'

'He died,' I said.

'From too much women, yes?'

'Yes,' I said.

The little Mexican clapped his hands together hard and cried out, 'That is exactly how I wish to go when I die! From too much women!'

'From too much goats and donkeys iss more like it in Mexico,' the German Ambassador snorted.

'That's enough of that, Wolfgang,' Sir Charles said. 'Let's not start any wars. We are listening to a most interesting story. Carry on, my boy.'

'So the next time,' I said, 'we only isolated twenty of these tiny red microscopic nuclei. We inserted them in a pellet of bread and then went out looking for a very old man. With the help of the local newspaper, we found our old man in Newmarket - that's a town not far from Cambridge. His name was Mr Sawkins and he was one hundred and two years old. He was suffering from advanced senility. His mind was wandering and he had to be fed by spoon. He had not been out of bed for seven years. The Professor and I knocked on the door of his house and his daughter, aged eighty, opened it. "I am Professor Yousoupoff," the Professor announced. "I have discovered a great medicine to help old people. Will you allow us to give some to your poor old father?"

' "You can give 'im anything you damn well please," the daughter said. "The old fool doesn't know what's goin' on from one day to the next. 'Ee's a flamin' nuisance."

'We went upstairs and the Professor somehow managed to poke the bread pellet down the old man's throat. I noted the time by my watch. "Let us retire to the street outside and observe," the Professor said.

'We went out and stood in the street. I was counting each minute aloud as it went by. And then - you won't believe this, gentlemen, but I swear it's exactly what happened - precisely on the dot of nine minutes, there was a thunderous bellow from inside the Sawkins's house. The front door burst open and the old man himself rushed out into the street. He was in bare feet, wearing dirty blue and grey striped pyjamas and his long white hair was all over his shoulders. "I want me a woman!" he bellowed. "I want me a woman and by God I'm goin' to get me a woman!" The Professor clutched my arm. "Don't move!" he ordered. "Just observe!"

'The eighty-year-old daughter came rushing out after the father. "Come back, you old fool!" she yelled. "What the 'ell d'you think you're up to?"

'We were, by the way, in a little street with a row of identical connected houses on either side. Mr Sawkins ignored his daughter and ran, he actually ran, to the next-door house. He started banging on the door with his fists. "Open up, Mrs Twitchell!" he bellowed. "Come on, my beauty, open up and let's 'ave a bit of fun!"

'I caught a glimpse of the terrified face of Mrs Twitchell at the window. Then it went away. Mr Sawkins, still bellowing, put his shoulder to the flimsy door and smashed the lock. He dived inside. We stayed out on the street, waiting for the next development. The Professor was very excited. He was jumping up and down in his funny black boots and shouting, "We have a breakthrough! We've done it! We shall rejuvenate the world!"

'Suddenly, piercing screams and yells came issuing from Mrs Twitchell's house. Neighbours were beginning to gather on the street. "Go in and get 'im!" shouted the old daughter. "'Ees' gone stark starin' mad!" Two men ran into the Twitchell house. There were sounds of a scuffle. Soon, out came the two men, frog-marching old Mr Sawkins between them. "I 'ad 'er!" he was yelling. "I 'ad the old bitch good and proper! I near rattled 'er to death!" At that point, the Professor and I moved quietly away from the scene.'