"I—I don't understand what you mean," said the puzzled Mr. Diggs, drawing himself up to his full height, which was hardly imposing.
"When I make a man of mud, and go off and leave him, to get people to come and look at him, I don't want him to go off, as you did, before I come back."
Abner Tompkins, and several others, who had heard the story of Joe's mud man, were now almost bursting with suppressed merriment.
"I can't tell what the deuce you mean?" said the angry Mr. Diggs.
"I made you out of mud and clay, and left you standing by the big tree at the creek while I went to get some people to show you to, that I might convince them that man was made out of clay, but before I got back you walked off. Now, why didn't you stay until I showed you?"
The men gathered about Mr. Diggs could no longer restrain themselves, and burst into peals of laughter, which made Mr. Diggs furious.
"This is some trick you are playing," he cried, and, turning upon his heel, he strutted away to his office, where he shut himself up for the next two hours.
The joke spread rapidly, and in two hours every one in the village knew that Crazy Joe claimed Mr. Diggs as his mud man; while poor Joe, satisfied that he had found the object of his creation, consented to go home with Abner.