There is no official profile on D.M. there are one or two memos relating to his activities but even these are written with invisible ink and, if they are ever typed up, it is done by a blindfolded typist in a blacked-out dustbin who types on invisible paper with a keyless typewriter.

These records are difficult to come by. All one can say for sure is that ............ de ............ is not his real name - any more than dangermouse is his real code name.

Any references to our hero, then, can only be drawn from the unofficial biography by Gerbil de Gook (Published Robin Matchbox & Co., 1976.)

What follows is a summary (though written in winter) of the early chapters:

Dangermouse's father is thought to have been of noble birth, considerable girth and little worth - though, as an amateur inventor, he is credited with devising the Cheadle Hulme portable tennis elbow (still obtainable from some of the more provincial retail outlets of Her Majesty's stationery office).

on his mother's side - and not many people were - his ancestors were all leaders of men except for the Black Sheep of the Family who was a sanitary engineer and the likely source of the famous legend of the Woolly Black Plumer of ramsgate.

in the year of his birth his mother joined the ill-fated Cutt-Pryce Everest Expedition. Apart from D.M.'s mama, the expedition included Mr. U.L.Tyde, famous in his day for his Chippendale wooden leg. Ong evening, after a hard day struggling with cravats and glaziers, they were resting at Camp 3, somewhere between 22,000 and 22,004.5 feet above sea level (the sea was rough at the time).

though it was bitterly cold, the heavily pregnant Mrs. .......... de ............ was warm enough as the one-legged climber had donated a spare artificial limb and the U.L. Tyde leg was blazing cheerfully in the cold darkness of the night.

In the leader's tent U.L. had joined Cutt-Pryce in a drink. "Blast!" grunted the Colonel. "This sherry's cold! Pass the loofah, there's a good..." Suddenly, he broke off.

"Oh blow!" ejaculated Tyde. "There goes our last chance of winning the gold for that great country of ours in the three-legged race!" Then, in the eerir stillness, a tiny wail drifted over those icy peaks.

"What, in heaven's name, is a tiny whale doing this far above sea level?" cried Cutt-Pryce.

 

"No, no, Colonel, it's... it's... Dangermouse!" whispered Tyde in awe. the next morning the Lt. Col. was drawing on his pipe after breakfast. But before he could call Sherpa Fivesing - Sherpa Tensing's half-brother - Dangermouse, always a precocious child, pushed his head into the tent. "Mind if I join me, Colonel?" he called cheerfully, and seconds later he pushed his body into the tent. "That's it!" he smiled. "Planted the flag on the top. I'm just popping down to Katmandu for a quick interview then I'll be back for the Mater!" By the time the rest of Cutt-Pryce's team had reached the plains, the population of Katmandu had learned of the birth of Dangermouse on the Magic Mountain and how he had conquered the peak. "A little older in years," said the Mayor of Katmandu, "and he will undoubtedly be conquering more Pekes and a Wire-Haired Fox Terrier!"

In September that year, young Dangermouse started at Eton after which he went on to Cambridge, Oxford, Havard, the Sorbonne and Würtembery picking up his B.A., B.Sc., M.A., M.Sc., and Ph.D. He became a double black belt in Judo, Tennis Champion of the World and was awarded his Firelighting Badge. Then, in October, he was approached by a certain Colonel K.

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