... approaches a well-dressed gentleman on the street. "Hey, Buddy, can you spare ten bucks?"

The well-dressed gentleman responds, "You are not going to spend it on liquor are you?"

"No, sir, I don't drink," retorts the bum.

"You are not going to throw it away on some fishing gear, are you?" asks the gentleman.

"No way, I don't fish," answers the bum.

"You wouldn't waste the money buying Golf Balls, would you?" asks the man.

"Never," says the bum, "I don't Golf."

The man asks the bum if he would like to come home with him for a home cooked meal. The bum accepts eagerly. While they are heading for the man's house, the bum's curiosity gets the better of him.

"Isn't your wife going to be angry when she sees a guy like me at your table?"

"Probably," says the man, "but it will be worth it. I want her to see what happens to a guy who doesn't drink, fish or play Golf."

People came from miles around to see the famed hypnotist do his stuff.

As Claude took to the stage, he announced, "Unlike most stage hypnotists who invite two or three people up onto the stage to be put into a trance, I intend to hypnotize each and every member of the audience."

The excitement was almost electric as Claude withdrew a beautiful antique pocket watch from his coat.

"I want you each to keep your eye on this antique watch. It's a very special watch. Its been in my family for six generations."

He began to swing the watch gently back and forth while quietly chanting, "Watch the watch, watch the watch, watch the watch.... "

The crowd became mesmerized as the watch swayed back and forth, light gleaming off its polished surface.

Hundreds of pairs of eyes followed the swaying watch, until suddenly it slipped from the hypnotist's fingers and fell to the floor, breaking into a hundred pieces.

"Crap" said the hypnotist.

It took three weeks to clean up the theater.

... then insured them against fire among other things. Within a month having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy, the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company.

In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost "in a series of small fires". The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason: that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion.

The lawyer sued ... and won!

In delivering the ruling the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous. The judge stated nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable "fire", and was obligated to pay the claim.

Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000 to the lawyer for his loss of the rare cigars lost in the "fires".

NOW FOR THE BEST PART ... After the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of ARSON! With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine.

This is a true story and was the 1st place winner in the recent Criminal Lawyers Award Contest.