Practical Jokes by Guy De Maupassant — Read

We live in a period when practical jokers have the air of undertakers' men and are generally known as politicians. We never see them now, your real practical joke, your really splendid rag, your happy little games, the healthy forthright jokes of our fathers' time. And, however, what is there more amusing and more laughable than such jests? What is more amusing than to mystify credulous souls, dupe the cleverest, and make the sharpest fall into inoffensive and comic traps? What is better fun than making adroit mock of people and forcing them to laugh at their own simplicity or even, when they get angry, revenging oneself by a fresh trick?

Oh! I have played a few; I've played some practical jokes in my time. And they have been played on me too, I can tell you, and good ones too. Yes, I have played more than one, terrible affairs -- make your hair stand on end. One of my victims died of the consequences, and no loss to anyone. I will tell the story one day, but I shall have some difficulty in telling it decently, for it was by no means a very respectable practical joke -- oh, by no means. It happened in a little village in the suburbs of Paris. Everyone there is still laughing at the memory of it, although the victim is dead. Peace to his soul!