Luck
The pessimist quoted from his own experience at poker in illustration of the general cussedness of things:
“Frequent, I have sot in a poker game, and it sure is queer how things will turn out. I’ve sot hour after hour in them games, without ever takin’ a pot. And then, ‘long about four o’clock in the mornin’, the luck’d turn—it’d take a turn for the worse.”
“How did you find your steak?” asked the waiter of a patron in the very expensive restaurant.
“Just luck,” the hungry man replied, sadly. “I happened to move that small piece of potato, and there it was!”
The new reporter wrote his concluding paragraph concerning the murder as follows:
“Fortunately for the deceased, he had deposited all of his money in the bank the day before. He lost practically nothing but his life.”
The editor of the country paper went home to supper, smiling radiantly.
“Have you had some good luck?” his wife questioned.
“Luck! I should say so. Deacon Tracey, who hasn’t paid his subscription for ten years, came in and stopped his paper.”