"Fighting Tools"

Into a Belfast pub comes Paddy Murphy, looking
like he'd just been run over by a train. His arm is
in a sling, his nose is broken, his face is cut and
bruised and he's walking with a limp.

"What happened to you?" asks Sean, the bartender.

"Jamie O'Conner and me had a fight," says Paddy.

"That little rat, O'Conner," says Sean, "He couldn't
do that to you with his fists, he must have had something in his
hand."

" That he did," says Paddy, "a shovel is what he had,
and a terrible lickin' he gave me with it."

"Well," says Sean, "you should have defended
yourself. Didn't you have something in your hand?"

"That I did," said Paddy. "Mrs. O'Conner's breast,
and a thing of beauty it was, but useless in a fight!"

Dave Oesterreich