Dear Tom:

Gunnery Sergeant W.T. Roberts told me the story of the Staff NCO in Second Radio Battalion a Camp Lejeune who constantly boasted about the excellent mileage he was getting from his new Japanese car.

Evidently this guy made a nuisance of himself, so someone set about to fry his fish.

The car owner was an avowed jogger, so every day at noon, as he was beating the pavement at Camp Geiger, some practical joker was pouring gasoline into the tank of his little Jap marvel: The first day, a quart; the second, two quarts; the third, gallon, etc.

His boasting took on new vigor. "Jesus! The mileage on this car gets better and better. It ain't even broken in yet, and I'm getting fifty-six miles per gallon!"

The car's performance continued to improve until he was getting better than ninety miles per gallon of gasoline.

Then the joker went into "Phase II." He started siphoning gasoline out of the car: First a quart, the two, etc. The boasting stopped, and after a few days turned to complaints. "I don't know what's wrong with the son of a bitch, but it's down to eighteen miles per gallon."

When it got down to nine miles per gallon, he took the car to the dealer and raised hell. The scratched their heads, worked on the carburator, finally tore the engine apart, but never found the cause.