John Smith and his friend Bill Jones were shipwrecked on a deserted island in
the middle of the Pacific Ocean.#
They had plenty of fish and fruit to eat, but nothing to read except a book
full of jokes.#
Each of the jokes was numbered.#
At first, to help pass the time, John and Bill read the jokes to one another,
then they told them from memory. After a year they knew the jokes so well that
they just said the number of the joke.#
"Twenty," John would say, and Bill would roar with laughter.#
Then Bill might say," Seventy-five," and John would laugh.#
One day, after they had been on the island for many years, another man was
shipwrecked with them.#
"How do you pass the time?" he asked them.#
"We tell each other jokes." Bill said, and handed him the joke book.#
"Tell us a joke," John said. "Just read out the number."#
"O.K.," the man said. He looked through the book until he found a joke he
thought was very funny. It was number eighty-three.#
"I've found a good joke," he said. "Are you ready?"#
"Yes," Bill and John said.#
"Right," the man said. "Here it is. Eighty-three."#
John and Bill just looked at the man. Their faces did not move. They did not
make a sound.#
"Why didn't you laugh?" the man asked.#
"You didn't tell it very well," Bill said.&