Contents
Butch Minds the Baby
Lillian
A Very Honorable Guy
Madame La Gimp
The Hottest Guy in The World
Bred for Battle
A Story Goes With It
Sense of Humor
Undertaker Song
That Ever-Living Wife of Hymie’s
The Brakeman’s Daughter
Little Miss Marker
Dancing Dan’s Christmas
Princess O’Hara
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“Sense of Humor”
No one in the world can give a hot foot as good as Joe the Joker, because it takes a guy who can sneak up very quiet on the guy who is to get the hot foot, and Joe can sneak up so quiet many guys are willing to lay you odds that he can give a mouse a hot foot if you can find a mouse that wears shoes. Furthermore, Joe the Joker can take plenty care of himself in case the guy who gets the got foot feels like taking the matter up, which sometimes happens, especially with guys who get their shoes made to order at forty bobs per copy and do not care to have holes burned in these shoes.
But Joe does not care what kind of shoes the guys are wearing when he feels like giving out hot foots, and furthermore, he does not care who the guys are, although many citizens think he makes a mistake the time he gives a hot foot to Frankie Ferocious. In fact, many citizens are greatly horrified by this action, and go around saying no good will come of it.
This Frankie Ferocious comes from over in Brooklyn where he is considered a rising citizen in many respects and by no means a guy to give a hot foots to, especially as Frankie Ferocious has no sense of humor whatever. In fact, he is always very solemn, and nobody ever sees him laugh, and he certainly does not laugh when Joe the Joker gives him a hot foot one day on Broadway when Frankie Ferocious is standing talking over a business matter with some guys from the Bronx.
He only scowls at Joe, and says something in Italian, and while I do not understand Italian, it sounds so unpleasant that I guarantee I will leave town inside of the next two hours if he says it to me.
– Damon Runyon –