Mice and Management (Noel Douglas)

Amusing novel about a young man down from Cambridge who, after spending a futile eight months answering "situations vacant" advertisements in the newspapers, is told by a friend that opportunities would present themselves if he would get out and meet people. Indeed, at his first "bottle party" he is offered a job selling a new product, electric mouse traps! Within a short period of time he is the head of the mousetrap division of the British All-Electric Products Co. His good fortune soon comes to an end when, on the same day, the president of the company absconds with GBP200,000 and all of the young man's prospective in-laws perish in a fire which was traced to the malfunctioning of an electric mousetrap which he had sold them. Still, at the novel's conclusion our hero has managed to muddle through, benefitting from opportunities which came his way through chance rather than through any real effort on his own behalf.