The way you tell it

Walk this way....: "The new guy in the cellblock is feeling pretty lousy. Then he hears somebody yell out, '41!' And everybody else in the block laughs uproariously. Somebody else says '28!'

More laughs.

New guys asks his cellmate, 'What's going on?' Cellmate says, 'We don't hear any new jokes in here, so we just tell the same ones over and over. Every joke has a number, so we don't have to listen to the same tired old words.'

So new guy thinks this is pretty neat. He calls out a number at random: '14!' Nobody laughs. He says, '39!' Not a peep.

The cellmate takes him aside and says, 'Look, kid. It's not so much the joke. It's the way you tell it that makes it funny.'"