"Try it on him, just for size." The Drip began snuffling in anticipation: "Hnkhhh...."
"It's a sweetheart, baby. Diggy says to you: 'How's your wife, Mig?'"
"I'll have you know my wife's an angel," Sourball snapped.
"You're lucky! Hnkhhh.... My wife's still living."
Mason looked at them nervously. The truth was, he didn't know a good gag from a bad one, and was always apprehensive.
"I'm afraid of it, fellas," he said. "Diggy's a wholesome American boy. He wouldn't make fun of marriage."
He dragged the photographer to the bench. There he demonstrated the inner workings of his genius ... the dummy's weighted eyes, the carefully fitted mouth and jaw, the regular body with right-hand controls for the head, and an extra body with left-hand controls; for dummies, like baseball gloves, must be fitted to the hand. Mason would have been in great difficulties last September, he explained, when he had rheumatism in his working hand, if he hadn't had a left-hand dummy to switch to.
"Not rheumatism. Neuritis." Sourball said.
"Wait a minute. Room. Attic. Hnkhhh.... Diggy's a poet working in an attic. Mig's the landlord. He asks Diggy where he could work better, in a room or attic, and Diggy says: 'That's why I'm bent over my desk. Rheumatics.'"
"Switch it to neuritis," Sourball snapped. "Diggy's an editor. Mig's the poet. Mig's sore because Diggy says his poem is old fashioned."