7. All his life farmer Jones and raised strawberries and so, when one spring morning he glanced out his window and spied a strawberry big as an echo satellite growing in his patch, he was ecstactic beyond description. He knew he'd be able to sell the fruit and retire on the profits. Immediately he telephoned the local strawberry appraiser to rush out, measure it, and tell him how much it would bring on the open market. Within an hour the appraiser arrived in his pick-up truck, but instead of taking out his measuring instruments he uprooted the strawberry, tossed it into his truck and drove off. "Help!" cried farmer Jones. "What is the meaning of this?" The thief replied as he disappeared into the distance.

* * *

8. When old Lord Tottingham visited his physician with various aches in his limbs, the wise doctor recognized the trouble instantly as Miller's syndrome, a psychosomatic ailment, and prescribed a placebo to keep the old boy happy. "You mean there's nothing really wrong with him?" asked a nurse when the patient had left. "Of course not," replied the doctor:

* * *

For the Pros

9. Morris was invited to a costume party and decided to go as a lion. Unable to afford a ready made costume he fashioned his own out of old yellow bedspreads. For the mane, Morris ingeniously dyed a watercress and some lamb's wool gold and wired them together. His costume was perfect except that when he moved embarrassing squeaking noises issued from his mane. Morris telephoned his friend George for advice.

"Your problem is quite simple," George advised. "The sounds result from friction between the fleece, the wire, and the watercress. Just rub vaseline over the lambswool, compress the watercress as tight as you can." Morris made these adjustments and sure enough, the mane was utterly silent.

It's amazing!" he confined to George at the party later that evening. "Of course," George replied:

* * *

10. Nat's a newly opened restaurant, advertized the excellence of its omelets. "Are the eggs really fresh?" a prospective customer asked the waitress.

"My yes," she replied. "We have our own hens right out in back. Hundreds of them."

"Well," mused the customer, still skeptical, "Do you keep them in those awful prefabricated aluminum coops, or in the good old fashioned well-constructed wooden kind, that keeps the hens warm and contended?"

Oh in the wooden kind only." the waitress assured him. "In fact:

* * *

11. Some centuries ago a Scandinavian explorer, Thun by name, de- voted himself of anthropological studies of North American Indian tribes. To facilitate accurate documentation, he would live as a member of each tribe for a period of months. After one such sojourn, Thun was deathly, violently ill to his stomach and went on to the next in horrendous fits vomiting and diarreah.

As ill-luck would have it, he arrived at the Tiwanda village just the completion of their annual "festival of the bear." All year long Tiwanda braves would hunt bear and finally, on this particular day, the largest bear of the season would be killed, prepared and eaten by every members of the community. Each brave, squaw and papoose had his share of bear meat, of bear brain, of bear eye, of bear bone, and, for dessert, of bear's fur, cooked in a special glasse.

Poor Thun knew that his hosts would be mightily offended if he failed to partake of their bandquet and so he steeled his quaking stomach for the ordeal ahead. He managed to make it unsteadily through the-first four courses, but felt, as dessert was carried on, that if he consumed a single morsel more he would surely lose his entire dinner. He was in a quandry. But meanwhile the chief, a kindly old fellow, had observed Thun's distress and, knowing this particular bear 's fur glasse to be an unusually strong preparation, he leaned over and chanted in Thun's ear:

* * *

12 The testing of nuclear devices in the Greater Boston atmosphere had caused an alarming radioactive mist to settle over the environs. Their exams just completed, Harvard students were quick to protest. Their rallying cry