The Tin-Can Alarm Clock Prank That Sent a Spokane Sleeper Racing Downtown at 1:30 A.M.

A good joke is always enjoyable to the perpetrators even if not so amusing to the one on whom it is played. It is second nature for some people to lay awake at night devising schemes to get the laugh on their neighbors. In very dull times a poor joke is better than no joke at all, and a man will then condescend to laugh at things that would hardly raise his risibilities at another time.

To make matters certain the gentleman arranged with night watchman Kohlhoff to act the part of an alarm clock. The solid gentleman rigged up a large tin can on the bureau in his bedroom to which he attached a string, leaving the end out of the window. By a simple jerk the guardian of the night could pull down the can, the noise thus created awakening the sleeper. Some of the boys overheard the arrangement and made up their minds to have a little sport at the gentleman's expense.

The party retired early in order to secure sufficient rest. A little after 11 o'clock the shadows of several human beings on evil bent could be seen flitting about the eastern part of the city. Reaching the home of the unsuspecting innocent, who was wrapped in the arms of Morpheus and a sheet, for the night was warm, the substance of those shadows attached a long string to the short cord suspended from the window and, getting off a block, gave the connection a long and vicious pull. The tin can fell off the high perch with a frightful din and jumped across the room, making enough noise to awaken the seven sleepers, to say nothing of one. The gentleman sprang from his couch and into his clothes without stopping to look at the time, supposing from the activity of the tinware that the watchman had been a little behind hand and was anxious for him to dispatch quickness quick. In his excitement the party thought of nothing but that train, and he flew down the street, completing his toilet on the run. Not having access to his thoughts we cannot exactly say what passed through his mind when, on reaching the business part of the city, he found it to be only half-past 1, but are pretty certain that he did not feel like presenting the disturbers of his rest with handsomely designed medals.