solved although those doing the searching did not, in the end, have far to look.

A week last Wednesday thousands of Government pay cheques were lost between Serpentine Road, in Pembroke, and the Government Adminstration Building, in Hamilton.

At first it appeared as if the printers may have dropped them along the route and Government officials set about trying to trace all 2,200 cheques, not realising the search rested under their noses -- at the Goverment building.

The Finance Minister, the Hon. David Saul, said yesterday: "I don't know where they have been found, but I have had my leg pulled all day by a friend who said they were found at the Adminstration Building.'' Last night the Accountant General, Mrs. Heather Matthews, declined to comment on exactly when and where the pay cheques had been found but she said that the banks and the Police had both been notified.

"The cheques have been found intact and safe,'' she said.