There were three unfortunate souls scheduled for the guillotine: a
priest, a drunkard, and an engineer.
The priest is called first and given the choice of face up or face
down.
The priest chooses face up so he can look up to heaven at this
drastic point in time. The lever is pulled, the blade sails down the track
and stops a centimeter or two from the priest's neck. Divine
intervention being the obvious cause, the priest is freed.
The drunkard is called next, and given the choice of face up or face
down, thr drunkard reckons to follow suit with the priest, and chooses
face up. The lever is pulled, the blade sails down the track and again stops
a centermeter or two from the drunkard's neck. Again, due to divine
intervention, the drunkard is freed.
The engineer is finally called, and given the choice of face up or
face down, the engineer follows along with the priest and drunkard and
chooses face up. Just as the executioner is about the pull the lever, the
engineer yells out "hold-on, I see the problem"