Average Middle-Aged Man

The Average Middle-Aged Man is a strange man who appears in A Link to the Past. He is a former thief specialized in the picking of locks that now lives at the entrance of the Desert of Mystery under the guise of being a mute, ordinary man. If Link picks up or slices his sign, the man will break his silence and follow Link until he leaves the area.

After hearing about the "average" man from a thief in the Lost Woods or from a strange creature in a cave located where the Ice Rod is in the Light World, Link can return to him with the chest found in the Village of Outcasts. The man offers to open the chest for Link in exchange for him not telling anyone about his true identity. He gives Link the Magic Bottle that was inside in exchange for Link's silence. Afterwards, he won't care one way or the other whether or not his sign is taken.

Trivia
The "average" guy asking Link to keep his identity a "secret to everyone" is possibly a reference to the famous quote from The Legend of Zelda.