Hairbreadth Harry: The Infernal Machine

Here is the machinery of the gag laid bare. A wooden crate stamped "Handle With Care" turns up, and the neighborhood talks itself into believing it is an "infernal machine" planted by the Mafia. Word passes cop to cop. A patrolman presses an ear to the lid and swears he hears it ticking; a crowd backs off; the captain is summoned to pry it open. When the lid comes off, out pour not explosives but a pile of live crabs, which fasten onto every finger in reach. Kahles drew this in original ink, and the pen line is loose and quick, built for speed. The whole episode is a small cliffhanger punctured by a joke, the melodrama-baiting rhythm that kept Hairbreadth Harry going for a quarter century.