Like the telephone game, this tale of the fanciful consequences of imagination shows that the mind has the potential to create very dramatic scenes from simple circumstances. When a woman is frightened by a mouse in her house and tells her son to call a neighbor for help, the son calls the neighbor, the neighbor calls his neighbor, and the story takes on a life of its own. The call for help becomes more confusing and more absurd as each townsperson tells another exaggerated version of the original story. Mistaken storytelling and wild imagination eventually have the police on the way, for a humorously dramatic "rescue."