“Say, boys,” he began. “What day’s this?”
“Friday, ain’t it?”
“No, not that. What day of the month?”
“Darned if I know!”
“Well, I’ll tell you now. It’s the first o’ April. I’ve got a calendar in the hut as says so.”
“What if it is?” said several voices.
“Well, don’t you see, it’s All Fools’ day. Couldn’t we fix up some little joke on some one, eh? Couldn’t we get a laugh out of it? Now there’s old Bones, for instance; he’ll never smell a rat. Couldn’t we send him off somewhere and watch him go maybe? We’d have something to chaff him on for a month to come, eh?”
There was a general murmur of assent. A joke, however poor, was always welcome to the Sluice. The broader the point, the more thoroughly was it appreciated. There was no morbid delicacy of feeling in the gulches.
“Where shall we send him?” was the query.
Jim Struggles was buried in thought for a moment. Then an unhallowed inspiration seemed to come over him, and he laughed uproariously, rubbing his hands between his knees in the excess of his delight.