A business man ordered a lot of canaries from a merchant in another land to be delivered by ship.
When the ship landed, the man was notified, and when he arrived at the docks he saw them all piled up in wooden cages along the wharf.
Walking along the cages, he noted that there wasn’t much singing going on, in fact, he didn’t hear a peep out of any of them.
Thinking, “Oh my goodness, I won’t be able to sell these if they don’t sing.” So he went into a nearby warehouse and talked to the owner about buying them at 5 or 10cents on the dollar.
After the birds were all in the warehouse and nicely arranged on shelves, there appeared in a newspaper a full page ad saying, “For Sale, Imported Canaries at $10 each.” It also added more descriptions as to their beauty and where the sale was going to be held, at the warehouse.
On the day of the sale, the owner hooked up a speaker system with a recording playing of lots of birds chirping away, and the sales were brisk. At the end, all the birds were sold.
While the owner was counting his receipts, there was a heavy pounding on his office door. When he opened the door, a big man holding bird in his hand walked in and said, “I bought this bird this afternoon.”
The owner interrupted him and said, “I see you did sir, but tell me did you get one of the singers or one of the dancers?
