Down On Your Luck?

A group of well-intentioned people met to discuss ways and means of helping a friend who had been down on his luck recently. Knowing him to be an extremely proud person who would not accept money, they decided to arrange a bogus raffle. They told him that they would all draw numbered slips of paper from a hat, and the person who drew the number four would win $200. They did not tell him that the number “four” was on every slip. After the drawing, each of the conspirators glanced at their slips and crumbled them up in the manner of disappointed losers. Then they waited to hear their friend announce that he had drawn the winning number. But he did not speak. Finally, one number of the group asked him, knowingly, “What number did you draw?” “Six and seven-eights,” he replied, holding up the hat-size tag.

That is a fairly good example of a man who is really down on his luck. But,…