Combustible

A tiny bottle of combustible red fluid exploded last week into a labor ruckus that left thousands of Londoners without cheese, butter, bacon, jam.

In the shipping department of Peter Keevil & Sons, Ltd., London wholesale provisioners, a worker named Jack Bryant found his cigarette lighter empty. Cleverly, he lowered a small medicine bottle on a string into the fuel tank of a company truck, pulled it out full of red gasoline, and replenished his lighter. (Britain's Labor government has decreed the red color for all gas used by commercial vehicles, for easier detection if it leaks into the black market.)

One of Bryant's bosses saw his stunt. Caught, Bryant apologized, poured back the fluid, worth only about half a cent. Nevertheless, his employers gave him his week's pay (about $20) and fired him.

Union shop stewards furiously protested; the company stood its ground in view of "the large amount of dishonesty and pilfering of rationed commodities." At that, 150 Keevil workers went on strike, refused to arbitrate until Bryant was reinstated, appealed for support to Transport and General Workers' Union headquarters. No Keevil provisions reached the shops, frustrated housewives bit their nails, and clever Jack Bryant sat at home with his six kids, snapping his lighter.

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