o. I thought it up while I was watching some
fellows play tennis, and I just know you're all crazy to hear it."

"We'd have to be crazy to want to hear it," said Bob. "But probably
you'll feel better after you get it out of your system, so fire ahead, and
we'll do our best to stand the strain."

"This won't be any strain; it will be a pleasure," said Herb. "Now, this
joke is in the form of a humorous question and an even more humorous
answer. Oh, it's a wonder, I'll say."

"We'll say something, too, if you don't hurry up and get the agony over
with," threatened Joe. "Make it snappy, before we weaken under the strain
and throw you out the window."

"Well, then," said Herb: "Why does the tennis ball? And the answer is:
Because the catgut on the racquet." And he broke into a peal of laughter,
in which, however, his friends refused to join.

"Well, what's the matter?" asked Herb, cutting short his laughter as he
saw that the others only shook their heads despondently. "Why in the name
of all that's good don't you laugh? Wasn't that a peach of a joke?"

"Herb, the only reason we don't kill you right away is because you will be
punished more by being allowed to live and suffer," said Bob. "That was a
fierce joke."

"Oh, get out!" exclaimed Herb, in an injured tone. "You fellows don't know
a clever joke when you hear it."

"Likely enough we don't," admitted Joe. "We don't get much chance to hear
clever jokes while you're around."

"Oh, well, if you don't like my jokes, why don't you think up some of your
own?" asked Herb, in an aggrieved tone. "There's no law against it, you
know."

"There ought to be, though," put in Jimmy.

"Oh, what do you know about it?" asked Herb, incensed at the laughter that
followed this thrust. "All you can think of, Doughnuts, is what you're
going to get to eat when the next meal time comes around."

"Well, I enjoy thinking of that so much, that I'd be foolish to think of
anything else," said Jimmy, serenely.

"You win, Jimmy," said Bob, as he and Joe shouted with laughter at Herb's
discomfiture. The latter was inclined to be sulky at first, but he soon
forgot his ill humor, and was as gay as the others as they discussed their
plans for the fall and winter months.

Contrary to the predictions of some of their neighbors in Clintonia, their
enthusiasm for radio work had increased rather than diminished, and they
were anxious to become the possessors of sets capable of hearing any
stat