November 1954 was exceptionally cold, and John Witly, a clerk at the Toronto office of the Scotland-based Halifax Bank, was freezing and hurrying home. He carried some files with banking documents under his arm.
The manager ordered him to urgently analyze the cash flows and transactions of a couple of companies at once, including the notorious Delicateshop, to decide whether to give them another credit or not.
But when he entered his house, John understood that he would not be able to work quietly, as his fidgety children (three sons - 8, 10 and 12 years of age), fond of World War II battle reconstructions, had surpassed all concerns: they made a real war, and all rooms, including his study, turned into a battlefield.
All of the books from his personal library (over 5 thousand rare editions, including unique books with authographs of famous writers who John was lucky enough to talk to) became strategic objects of various purposes and almost covered all the floors of the two-story cottage. Tables, sofas, arm-chairs, stair-case to the first floor and other war-suitable places were heaped up with books. Judging by the flushed faces of his sons, the war was in full swing with uncertain outcome and time of completion.
John looked with melancholy on the mess and began thinking of his friends who might shelter him for a night to finish the work as he had promised to the bank manager. He was going to slam the door behind him, when his eyes noticed a place, still untouched by war - between the fridge and the window with a great view of the garden.
Skilfully navigating the battlefield it would be possible to get there and use the windowsill as the working table, thought John, and carefully maneuvering between books he started to make his way to the window. John wasn’t daunted by the fact that he could only stand there and the windowsill wasn’t wide enough to hold all the documents.
"Well, a good half of the documents is accomodated”, he encouraged himself, but found another problem. "It would be good to put this pile of documents by theme, but how?”, thought John as he skimmed the windowsill with a dozen of magnetic tokens lying in its corner. Absent-mindedly he took one of the tokens and attached the first remittance advice of the notorious Delicateshop to the fridge - the only unoccupied place. He smiled and rubbed his hands with pleasure.
I think it’s no use to tell that after that his work went on smoothly, and after 11 p.m. while the battle still raged on and was far from over, John finished his work. The next morning he had hardly submitted his papers to the manager when he ran to the patent office to formalize his new invention – an idea of using a magnet as a holder for light objects (say, paper) on metal surfaces.
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