"That," said Hans, "is the story of Baron Humpfelhimmel's affliction."
"And a strange story it is," said I. "Though I don't know that it has any particular moral."
"Oh yes, it has!" said Hans. "It has a good moral."
"And what is that?" I asked.
"Don't laugh at your own jokes," he replied. "If Siegfried von Pepperpotz had not laughed when the magician came back, he never would have been cursed, and this story never would have been told."