The other night, after Mr. Ragbag had gone to bed, the idea of a very
funny joke occurred to him. It seemed so funny that he went into a
paroxysm of laughter, and twisted and squirmed so that he pulled the
bed clothes all out at the foot and had to get out to tuck them in
again, and got awful cold, and made as much noise as to awaken his
wife in the next room, and she, on hearing the cause of the commotion,
told Ragbag he was a fool and advised him to go to bed. He did so, but
lay awake half the night thinking of the joke, and the next morning
Ragbag hastily swallowed his breakfast, and hastened out on the street
to play his joke. The first man he met was Gallagher. Gallagher’s
business compels him to carry about one hundred keys, and Ragbag knew
this. Gallagher was just the man Ragbag wanted to see. Rushing up to
Gallagher he said:
“Ah, Gallagher, have you lost a key?”
“Don’t know,” replied the victim. “Let me see it.”
“First see if you have lost one,” said Ragbag.
So Gallagher took off his gloves and went to work. He searched pocket
after pocket, and examined each and every bunch of keys carefully. It
was sharp weather, and his fingers got cold and numb, but he kept at
it. One hundred keys were a good many to keep track of, and Gallagher
had to think of every lock about his establishment, and then look
for that particular key, and it was a tedious job. And it wasn’t
satisfactory, either, for Gallagher couldn’t quite make up his mind
that one key was not missing. He demanded a sight of the key found.
Then Ragbag’s self-control gave way. With a howl of laughter he cried:
“Why, I haven’t found any. I only asked if you had lost one as a
matter of curiosity.”
It didn’t take three seconds for Gallagher to decide what to do. The
snow for forty feet around was clawed and kicked into a cloud that
filled the air. Folks looked out of the windows and howled to see the
fun. And when Ragbag re-entered the house with his clothes torn, ear
chawed, and eyes blacked, and explained that he had been playing his
joke, his wife was more than ever convinced that he was an old donkey,
and told him so. Somehow, at times, humor is fearfully discouraging in
this country.