y-or-n-p, emacs -l, wristwatch cursor

[dan]

This bug report will be sent to the Free Software Foundation,
not to your local site managers!
Please write in English, because the Emacs maintainers do not have
translators to read other languages for them.

Your bug report will be posted to the bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org mailing list,
and to the gnu.emacs.bug news group.

In GNU Emacs 21.2.1 (i386-debian-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2002-03-22 on raven, modified by Debian
configured using `configure  i386-debian-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr 
--sharedstatedir=/var/lib --libexecdir=/usr/lib --localstatedir=/var/lib 
--infodir=/usr/share/info --mandir=/usr/share/man --with-pop=yes --with-x=yes 
--with-x-toolkit=athena --without-gif'
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: C
  locale-coding-system: nil
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

I have a file foo.el, containing the single line

(y-or-n-p "hello")

I start emacs and load this file with the command 

emacs --no-site-file -q -l foo.el

and am prompted in the echo area/minibuffer with "hello(y or n) ".
After pressing one of 'y' or 'n', the text cursor starts flashing and
then the mouse pointer changes into the wristwatch-shaped 'wait'
cursor, and stays like that until I press C-g.  While the wait pointer
is active, the menus and toolbars do nothing when clicked on.

I do not see this behaviour if I replace the contents of foo.el with

(let ((last-nonmenu-event nil)) (y-or-n-p "foo"))

and repeat, but that involves popup dialog boxes, which I wish to avoid
for other reasons.

Any ideas?

Recent input:
<mouse-movement> <mouse-movement> <mouse-movement> 
<mouse-movement> <mouse-movement> <mouse-movement> 
<mouse-movement> <mouse-movement> <mouse-movement> 
<mouse-movement> <mouse-movement> <mouse-movement> 
<mouse-movement> <mouse-movement> <mouse-movement> 
<mouse-movement> <mouse-movement> <drag-mouse-1> <help-echo> 
M-x e m a c s - <tab> v <tab> <return> <help-echo> 
<down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> 
<right> C-a C-k C-k <tab> <down> C-a <left> <backspace> 
<down> <tab> C-x C-s <help-echo> <help-echo> <down-mouse-1> 
<mouse-1> <help-echo> C-h i C-x 1 u <next> u <up> <up> 
<up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <return> SPC SPC SPC C-x 5 
2 <switch-frame> <help-echo> <switch-frame> <switch-frame> 
M-x r e p o r t - e m a c s - b u g <return>

Recent messages:
Wrote /home/dan/src/circle/circle/upstream/circle/circle.el
.emacs changed on disk; really edit the buffer? (y, n, r or C-h) 
byte-code: File reverted: /home/dan/.emacs
Mark set
Wrote /home/dan/.emacs
Wrote /home/dan/src/circle/circle/upstream/circle/circle.el [2 times]
Making completion list...
GNU Emacs 21.2.1 (i386-debian-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars) of 
2002-03-22 on raven, modified by Debian
Wrote /home/dan/src/circle/circle/upstream/circle/circle.el
Loading emacsbug...done