It made me laugh, anyway

Why can't my life be as good as my dreams? In my dreams I seem to get the girl and the laughs. I'm not kidding; this is true: I had the weirdest dream last night.

In my dream I visited my friend, the lawyer, at his home. A pretty young woman led into his large living room a ridiculously large elephant that I had apparently given Mark as a gift quite some time earlier, and I was a bit peeved that either she or my mate had removed its roller skates. Evidently the roller skates were supposed to have been an integral part of the gift.

At this point, I noticed that my friend the lawyer, who was seated at a kitchen bench, was hanging his head and weeping, for a reason or reasons unknown to me. I was deeply, sincerely moved in my dream, and it still moves me in my waking hours.

I asked Mark what the matter was and he sobbed that because he'd been allowing some friends, who were in poor health, to stay in his house as boarders, the government was prosecuting him for running a hospital without a licence. Then I said that was a real shame.

"But," I added after a pause that would do credit to Jack Benny, "you have to admit you do have seven wards in your house, and the best cardio-thoracic facility in the State."

I don't know what my mate thought, or what you think, but I woke up laughing like a loon. Which is a real pity, because if I'd stayed asleep I might have got the girl.