“Yes, yes—go on,” urged Stafford.

“There’s more in it than there is in your head.”

“More in what? the affidavit?” asked Ranger solemnly.

“No, that’s not what you say; you say, ‘You don’t say so.’”

“I think,” said Stafford, “that what he did say was a good deal funnier than what he ought to say. What’s the good of saying, ‘You don’t say so,’ when everyone of us here can swear you did? I don’t see the joke in it myself. Do any of you?”

“No; was it meant for one?” asked someone gravely.

“It’s not written down in the book that anyone’s to grin,” said Maple, hastily referring to his copy.

“Oh, that’s all right—only I wish you’d look alive and get to some of the jokes. I thought you said it was a funny piece.”

“So it is,” replied Wake, rather dismally; “it’s full of points.”

“They must all be crowded up to the end, then,” said Stafford.