"You surely don't think I am limited to one voice box?"
"Oh. I didn't know. What's that big metal ball you have there?"
"That's my communication sphere, to record my thoughts. I would not be without it. When in danger, I swallow it. When in extreme danger, I will have to escape to a spot where I have concealed my ejection mortar, and send my sphere into the galactic drift on a chance that it may be found."
"That's no kind of gag to put in an act. What I have in mind is something like this."
Blackjack Bracken told a joke. It was a childish one and in poor taste.
"I don't believe that is quite my style," I said.
"All right, what would you suggest?"
"I thought that I might lecture your patrons on the Higher Ethic."
"Look, George Albert, my patrons don't even have the lower ethic."
"And just what sort of recompense are we talking about?" I asked.