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The table roared with laughter and choruses of “That’s a good one!”

“But it’s a brand-new joke,” protested the drueport “How’d you hear it? I cao on the Pennsylvania Limited”

“I heard it in ’Frisco last veek,” said Fritz

“’Frisco? How? Did anyone else at the table ever hear it before?”

Salesmen shook their heads “New to me, Jake”

The youngest, a Chicago ho money on a line from the Gillette Safety Razor Company, had the explanation: “Electricity is faster than steam”

“What the heck do you mean by that?” asked the Locomobile representative

“He means,” said Fritz Wunderlich, “vile you ride the train, your joke flies to San Francisco on the telegraph vire”

“Who can afford to telegraph jokes?”

“No one goes to the expense But late at night when the wires are quiet and the operators have nothing else to do, they click jokes to one another”

The Quaker Oats salesman nodded “They know their pals by their ‘fists’ One pal clicks another, city to city, and the jokes get passed along the wire all the way across the continent”

“Fritz? How are things in Leipzig?”

“I a,are very vell indeed At least aentlemen? All are vell?”

“Very well, Fritz Say, weren’t you trying to sell a new organ to that big church in St Louis last tio?”

“Detroit, if I recall And thank you, it vent OK”