This one is supposedly from Poland in the 1950s:
Stalin is giving a speech to a group in a small lecture hall. In the
middle of the speech, someone in the audience sneezes loudly. Stalin stops
his speech, looks around with a frown, and asks:
"Who sneezed?"
Silence. Stalin says to the personal guards who are always around him.
"Take everyone in the first row outside and shoot them!" The guards round up
everyone in the first row and march them outside. BANG! Then the guards come
back in.
So Stalin looks at the audience and says, "Now: Who sneezed?"
Silence. Stalin says to the guards, "Take everyone in the second row
outside and shoot them!" The guards round up everyone in the second row and
march them outside. BANG! Then the guards come back in.
And Stalin says, "Now for the last time: WHO SNEEZED?"
A man in the back of the hall stands up and says, trembling, "Comrade
Stalin, it was I who sneezed."
"Ah!" says Stalin. "Gesundheit!"
=====================================
Jon Corelis [log in to unmask]
www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
=====================================
____________________________________________________________________
|