Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1903 — A Bad Joke's Age. [ARTICLE]

A Bad Joke's Age.

Noah was standing on his front stoop looking at the waterscape. He had been sounding as If he Intended weighing anchor. But Shem had misplaced the steelyards. Bo he kept right on sounding that way while the boys sought the missing article. , ♦ Suddenly the patriarch saw a head bobbing about In the turbid tide. Pity filled the heart of the veteran navigator. Making ready a rope, he stood to throw it as soon as the head might draw near enough. Skillfully throwing the noose, he encircled the form that buffeted with the waves. As the man was pulled In, hand over hand, he blew the water out of his mouth, and, with a vapid grin, cried out: “Loots a little bit like It might rain —ha, ha!” And Noah cut the rope. As he watched the bubbles come up from the place where the Joker had gone down, he murmured: “I wouldn't have anybody on this trip who would get off such an old one as that I”—Baltimore American.