He found Bob hard at work at his bench downstairs.
"Hey, Bob, want to hear a good joke?" he asked.
"Nope," said his friend, with discouraging brevity.
"Gee!" exclaimed Herb, "you're as bad as Joe. You neither of you seem to appreciate high-class humor any more."
"Oh, we appreciate high-class humor all right," said Bob, with a wicked grin. "It's only your kind that we can't stand for."
"Bang!" exclaimed Herbert. "That settles it. Any one of you knockers who wants to hear that story now will have to come to me and ask for it."
"That's all right, Herb. Just you hold on to it until we do. Maybe it will improve with a little aging."
"This story is so good that it can't be improved. But I'm going home now, so if you want to give yourself the pleasure of hearing it, you'd better say so right away."
"No, I'll get along somehow without it," answered Bob. "But maybe
Jimmy would like to hear it. Have you tried it on him?"
"No, and what's more, I'm not going to. I've lost my confidence in that story now. I guess it can't be so good after all."