You pass through and the door slams shut behind you. You are in a draughty stone-flagged room, dimly illuminated from a skylight high above. It contains: a coil of rope lying in a corner, a rubber bathing ring in the shape of a green sea-horse, a door marked PRIVATE, and, standing in rising water at the bottom of a thirty-foot pit, Roy Orbison, the well-known pop maestro.

'Hello Roy,' you say, 'what are you doing in this spooky dungeon?'

'I have been kidnapped by goblins,' he replies.

'So?' you reply with polite interest. 'That is surely a vexation.'

'It is,' he says. 'The mischievous creatures have incarcerated me in this pit into which water is inexorably flowing. If I cannot get free I will surely drown!'

It is so! A rusty pipe outlet is gushing remorselessly into the pit.

Roy continues:

'I would reward the man who rescued me with free concert tickets and a handsome carriage clock engraved with a personal message of thanks.'

'That is a prize worth daring much for, but common humanity and an interest in pop music alone dictates that I should help you.'

'Then please to do so with promptitude. The water is already lapping around my feet. My shoes are waterlogged and my black clothing will be ruined.'

What can you do in this predicament??

Do you:

Lower the rope to Roy and pull him out?
Throw him the rubber bathing ring in the shape of a sea-horse?
Look around for a stopcock, or some sort of Janitor who can turn off the water?
Wrap Roy Orbison in Clingfilm?