NINE TIMES FOUR

Journalistic wit and an old proverb united delectably on the front page of yesterday's Boston Herald. A telephone call, which specified house and street, but not the need, sent an engine of the Atlantic fire department clanging out into the snow. The destination was quickly attained, but, before the men could inquire into the cause of their summons, a low wail descended from a snowy tree. Like Androcles, the fire fighters hesitated. But the cry, like the unspecific lament of a hoot owl, did not betray whether it sprang from bird, beast, or fish. Yet it darted so pitifully down that the perplexed rescuers raised a ladder against the tree and sent one of their number hastily up it.

Now firemen are used to large heroisms. They climb precipitous buildings like human flies and plow through gallons of smoke, happy if they can manage to stifle therein. So it probably was a poignant sorrow to find embowered in the snowy branches only a tabby with three kittens. Nevertheless, their savior, with statesmanlike good humor handed them gently down. While, for compensation, the Herald manifled the deed by use of simple mathematics. It lauded the firemen for a single-handed rescue of thirty-six lives.