Spoonerism: The Chinese Carver

Old Chan, the Chinese carver, was terribly distressed. Some of his finest carvings had come up missing and he feared they'd been stolen. He kept them in the basement on a row of shelves.

Each day for three consecutive days one or more had come up missing. He devised a plan to catch the thief. First he took a flour sifter and sprinkled flour over the basement floor. The next morning he saw footprints of a child in the flour and more of his carvings were missing.

He decided to stay up this night, catch the child in the act and tell his parents. Hopefully that way he could recover his other carvings. He stayed awake in the shadows waiting.

Finally Chan fell asleep on his chair only to be awakened by a noise. There in his basement was a bear, a huge brown bear, and Chan was terrified. The bear had his arms full of Chan's carvings. He didn't know what to do.

Then he noticed that the bear was the one making the footprints he had seen in the flour. Then he relaxed, knowing he had nothing to worry about.

For it was only a Boy-foot bear with Teak of Chan.