10 JANUARY 1987, Page 19

George and the tiger

NEWS of profound but obscure import reaches me from a New York banker. He says that George Shultz, the Secretary of State (and former Treasury Secretary) has a tiger on his bottom. Mr Shultz is a Princeton man, and at Princeton the tiger is a sacred animal. Eager to evince his devotion and loyalty, the young Shultz caused a tiger to be tattooed where it remains as a lifelong pledge. It is, my informant adds, on the left side. This seems to me to explain, just as well as anything else, what is happening to the administration, the budget, the dollar, and the Dow Jones index — which, in spite of everything, shows the resilience of a tiger that no man can hold. It must (as the analysts say) look good on the fun- damentals.