George Robinson was ambitious1 but not very clever when he was at school, and he left when he was sixteen. At first he did not know what to do, but then he tried selling cheap toys in the street, and it quickly became clear that he was a clever businessman.2 Soon, without much struggle, he had a small shop of his own, and it was not long before he owned three big shops in his town, in which he employed over sixty people. Before he was thirty he also had quite a big factory for making toys, and had succeeded in making a considerable fortune.3

George had always been interested in local politics. He was elected to the town council4 when he was thirty-two, and was such a busy and useful member of it that he rapidly became mayor.

Although he was very successful in international industry as well as in local government, George was still not a very well-educated man, and as he was also a very busy one, he began to have the speeches he had to make written for him by a special speechwriter.5 Usually he did not have much time to go through6 a speech before giving it, but the speechwriter was good at thinking up clever things for George to say, so George never had any difficulties with him and got quite used to trusting him. In the end he did not trouble even to look at what he was given until it was time to make the speech.

Then one day George had to make an important speech at a formal official ceremony marking the opening of a new library which he had persuaded the other distinguished businessmen in the town to help him to pay for.7 He had been away on urgent business for a week8 before this occasion, so he had had no time to read through9 his speech at all.

When it was his turn to speak to the audience, he stood up on the stage, took his speech out of his pocket and began to read it. He enjoyed jokes, and always asked his speechwriter to put a few good ones in each speech he wrote for him, to put his audience in a good temper.10 This time, sure enough, he came to the words, "And that reminds me of one of my favourite stories."11

George had actually never heard that story before, and when he looked at it before reading it aloud, he burst out laughing and laughed so much that he fell off the platform on which he was standing and broke his arm.12