p j 11 3 /"* '11 -1 
 
 ttnckland uiihlan 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 INCLUDING FINNIGIN 
 
 INCLUDING YOU AND ME 
 
 SUNSHINE AND AWKWARDNESS 
 
 EACH, $1.00 
 
A SAMPLE CASE 
 OF HUMOR 
 
 BY 
 
 STRICKLAND GILLILAN 
 
 Author of "Including Finnigin," etc. 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 FORBES AND COMPANY 
 1919 
 
6* 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY 
 FORBES AND COMPANY 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Now here comes another lecture. I began 
 giving it because I had to have other lectures 
 besides " Sunshine and Awkwardness." I had 
 always, as a mere human, been deeply inter- 
 ested in humor, just as I had always been in- 
 terested in food and drink. It seemed to me 
 to be one of the chief necessities of life. I 
 noticed others loved it, and believed if I were 
 to talk a wee bit about humor, show some of 
 the different kinds there are, lead the public 
 inside and show it how the wheels go round, 
 said public might be further interested. I 
 did this before an audience, scared to death 
 and with a bunch of notes on the table beside 
 the glass of water, and the audience liked it. 
 This gave me courage and I let the thing grow 
 and grow until it is the size of what follows. 
 
 My hope for this book, from the viewpoint 
 5 
 
 M183576 
 
PREFACE 
 
 of results, is that it may increase the public's 
 appreciation of humor by increasing its powers 
 of observation in that direction sort of an 
 every-man-his-own-humorist proposition, you 
 see. There is as much fun in the world for 
 you as there is for me. All you need is eyes 
 to see it, a heart of kindly appreciation, and a 
 mind sufficiently devoid of rheumatism to 
 enable it now and then to jump out of the rut 
 and kick up its supple heels. It is, in other 
 words, in the hope of enabling people to have 
 a lot of cheap and harmless fun, from the eye- 
 brows up, that I have prepared this lecture 
 and put it into book form. It is a new sort of 
 text-book on Humor. 
 
 STRICKLAND GILLILAN. 
 
 6 
 
A SAMPLE CASE 
 OF HUMOR 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen My friends, and those 
 who are better acquainted with me : 
 
 It sometimes happens that when a speaker 
 goes before an audience and I hope to good- 
 ness that this time the speaker may go before 
 the audience does I say it sometimes happens 
 that when a speaker arises in the presence of 
 an audience before which he has previously 
 appeared in this or some other time on earth, 
 he finds himself in the unfortunate fix of the 
 Missouri farmer who was driving to town 
 through those old-time Missouri roads that 
 is, he went nearly through them, in places 
 
 7 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 with a wagon-load of apples. I don't know 
 what kind of apples they were. They weren't 
 Ben Davis they were apples of some kind. 
 But any way, as he was driving along try- 
 ing to guide his steaming team through the 
 least-worst places in this elongated and ser- 
 pentine mire that was jocosely called a road, a 
 board came loose in the bottom of the wagon- 
 bed, and the apples began rolling out, one at 
 a time, two at a time, peck at a time, till pretty 
 soon there wasn't an apple left. The old man, 
 busy with the team, knew nothing of what was 
 going on back of him. Finally they got into 
 the very worst mudhole yet. It was a bog of 
 blue clay, sticky and bottomless. The horses 
 sank further and further, till they got in clear 
 up to their alimentary canals. They strug- 
 gled and bit each other and frothed at the 
 mouth and squealed and laid back their ears, 
 but to no purpose. Then the boss "laid on the 
 bud" awhile to see if that form of moral sua- 
 sion would help, but it didn't. Finally he 
 
 8 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 turned to see what he had better do with his 
 apples. And when he noted the emptiness of 
 the wagon-bed he cried out in despair "Stuck, 
 by heck, and nothin' to unload!" 
 
 I say that sometimes happens to a speaker, 
 but it hasn't happened tonight. Cheer upl 
 If anybody is stuck it is whoever brought me 
 here. I am going to unload steadily for an 
 hour and a half or so. 
 
 When I find myself thus in the presence of 
 friendly folks, I feel far less like standing up 
 on my hind feet and lecturing at you as if I 
 were some superior being imported at great 
 expense from somewhere to impart wisdom to 
 you, than I feel like doing what the Hebrew 
 gentleman wanted to do one day. He had 
 gone along the road to a place where the rail- 
 road and the other road crossed each other at 
 grade. He saw symptoms of an automobile 
 lying about. He saw some inert human forms 
 draped and festooned over the landscape. He 
 noted one form less inert and more nearly in- 
 
 9 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 tact than the others, and he kneeled beside it, 
 intelligently asking: 
 
 "Wass dere a excident?" 
 
 The man inquired of was too nearly dead to 
 give the sort of answer that sort of fool ques- 
 tion so richly deserves, so he patiently whis- 
 pered, "Yes." 
 
 "Dit der logomotif hit der automopeel?" 
 
 Another whispered, "Yes." 
 
 "Dit der enchiner plow his vissle?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Has der claim achent been along yet?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Let me lay down peside you!" 
 
 A MANUFACTURER 
 
 I come to you tonight as a manufacturer. 
 A manufacturer as anybody knows who 
 knows enough to go in out of a heavy rain is 
 one who collects and selects raw materials and 
 fashions them into a finished product for the 
 use or pleasure of his fellow-mortals. The 
 
 10 
 
A MANUFACTURER 
 
 raw materials I collect, from which I select, 
 and incidentally largely and enthusiastically 
 reject, are the little bits of quaintness and 
 oddity and human inconsistency I see and 
 hear and imagine as I wander about the coun- 
 try, and the finished product is the humor of 
 commerce the kind you buy in newspapers, 
 magazines and other periodicals and on the 
 platform. All I give you is of my own manu- 
 facture not always manufactured from my 
 own raw material. Some of it is not. I use 
 only the stories and incidents that best illus- 
 trate the kinds of humor I mention in a sort 
 of attempt at classification of humor. You 
 have heard some if not all of my stories before, 
 for I was a manufacturer long before I became 
 a peddler. And there never yet was an author 
 who did not consciously or unconsciously use 
 material that was old. Mark Twain made a 
 world-wide reputation as an original humorist 
 by writing "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras 
 County," and afterward found the story in all 
 
 11 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 its essentials in the Ancient Greek. Kipling, 
 the greatest author of modern times, frankly 
 confessed that he took material wherever it 
 came to hand. 
 
 Much of what I tell you, is true. For truth 
 is not only stranger, but funnier, than fiction. 
 
 ORIGIN OF HUMOR 
 
 I have a theory about humor. Now any 
 person who takes up many minutes of other 
 people's time telling about a theory of his own, 
 ought to be shot at sunrise. So I shan't be 
 tedious about this: I believe that when the 
 great Creator of this universe had reached the 
 point in creation at which you or I or any other 
 finite being would have thought the whole 
 thing perfect and past possibility of improve- 
 ment when He had put the ripple on the 
 bosom of the stream which had been sufficiently 
 beautiful before it rippled; when He had set 
 the glorious rose bloom on the lacy thorn which 
 had been marvelously lovely before the bloom 
 
 12 
 
ORIGIN OF HUMOR 
 
 came; and when He had even gone so far as 
 to put a song into the richly burnished throat 
 of the bird, which had been endlessly attractive 
 before the song burst forth when He had 
 even done these three astounding things that 
 nobody except a master poet, artist and musi- 
 cian would have thought of even then He was 
 not wholly satisfied. He saw imperfections. 
 In His infinite wisdom He knew what was 
 wrong. In His infinite power He could 
 remedy the defect. In His infinite goodness 
 He did so. The thing lacking was humor. 
 He knew as well then as you and I have found 
 out since that there would be a lot of boiled- 
 dinner days and wash-days and blue Mondays 
 when everything would go at sixes and sevens, 
 and that some artificial joy was needed to tide 
 over until real happiness returned. And so 
 He went about over His work, and every- 
 where that it would not bring about a discord 
 or inharmony or curdle things hopelessly, He 
 chucked in a little fun. Then He glanced 
 
 13 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 over His work with a different look in His eye, 
 and He said, "It is good." (You may find 
 part of that in Genesis, but mighty little of it!) 
 Then He went on, for He is a progressive Cre- 
 ator ; and He gave you and me and other spe- 
 cial pets of His eyes to see, ears to hear and 
 hearts to feel and enjoy this blessing. 
 
 And He went still further, for He is an in- 
 finitely progressive personality, and He made 
 a lot of human jokes who take themselves seri- 
 ously. And they were the very funniest things 
 of all. They were doomed to go through life 
 with solemn faces, producing and distributing 
 large quantities of joy for others, without 
 knowing they did it. They remind me of a 
 bunch of sheep in a brier-patch. As they go 
 along sedately nipping the grass, they leave 
 tufts of their wool attached to the briers. 
 They don't know they leave it, but the birds do 
 and are grateful for this fine nest-building ma- 
 terial. . . . Among the other kinds of humor 
 
 14 
 
THE HUMORLESS PERSON 
 
 I am going to talk about, I am going to give 
 you some samples from this sort of person. 
 
 THE HUMORLESS PERSON 
 
 I have a friend who has about as much sense 
 of humor as the wooden Indian of commerce. 
 Some time ago he made a trip through the 
 Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. Like all such 
 literal-minded people he did his sight-seeing 
 very thoroughly. He didn't miss a single 
 ramification in that great crack in the face of 
 Mother Nature. And when he had completed 
 the job and had emerged, dirty and weary, I 
 asked him what he thought of the Mammoth 
 Cave. 
 
 "Well," said he, "taking it as a hole, it is all 
 right." 
 
 People go about the country putting up signs 
 that have no sense in them, and not realizing 
 how ridiculous they are. In Chicago, on 
 Adams Street, just before you cross the bridge 
 
 15 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 to go into the Union Station, there was once 
 a sign that I literally guyed out of the town: 
 "Petticoats Entrance on Market Street." 
 
 Now that wasn't true of those skirts at all. 
 I stopped and asked, one day. I found that 
 people who bought those skirts could get into 
 them at home, if the skirts were large enough ; 
 and didn't have to go to Market Street to 
 dress, at all. And I inquired into the na- 
 tionality of the man who put up that sign 
 laboriously engraving it on brass. He was a 
 thoroughbred American. 
 
 At Quincy, 111., on the Young Men's Chris- 
 tian Association building, in stone letters a 
 foot high and cut three inches deep in hard, 
 red granite, one sees (or could the last time I 
 looked) "Men's Y. M, C. A." That word 
 "men's" took probably a week to engrave. 
 And the man who wrote that sign, as well as 
 the man who dug the words out of the flinty 
 stone, was an American. 
 
 Now and again we find a person connected 
 16 
 
THE HUMORLESS PERSON 
 
 with the educational system of our country 
 who is devoid of the saving sense of humor. 
 This is criminal and should be prevented by 
 statute accompanied with severe penalty. 
 Any person connected with the mental and 
 moral training of our young and rising genera- 
 tion ought to be examined as carefully, by 
 competent inspectors, as to his sense of humor, 
 as he is examined to ascertain his scholarship 
 and moral character. If the young people of 
 this country are not sympathetically under- 
 stood in their proclivities for humor and 
 pranks they cannot be handled intelligently or 
 successfully. No ivory-topped citizen is equal 
 to the task. Too many of our so-called edu- 
 cators are scheduled correctly under the speci- 
 fications of the new beatitude I once saw writ- 
 ten in blue pencil on the inner wall of the 
 editorial sanctum of the Los Angeles Herald: 
 
 "Blessed is he who taketh himself seriously, 
 for he shall create much amusement." 
 
 And he who creates unintentional amuse- 
 17 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 ment never holds the respect of those who laugh 
 at him. To be laughed at is death, to be 
 laughed with is life. 
 
 I ran into one of these human educational 
 tragedies in a western city a few years ago. 
 If you come to me privately and promise to 
 be nice about it, I will name the town. But 
 I shan't do it in public. It is such a nice town 
 every other way. I had talked to the morning 
 assembly of students in the wonderful high 
 school edifice .they have in that city. I had 
 made a hit, of course. No, I am not immodest. 
 Anybody can make a hit talking to students 
 at morning assembly. The speech may be 
 poor stuff, but it is keeping the students from 
 work, which they dread even worse than a poor 
 speech. So in all modesty I say I was making 
 a big hit, for I talked a good while. 
 
 After I was through, I was going down one 
 of the corridors of the building, when I was 
 accosted by one of the faculty he wore a van 
 dyke beard, which is always impressive, and a 
 
 18 
 
THE HUMORLESS PERSON 
 
 wide ribbon to his pince-nez, which is irresisti- 
 ble. He accosted me and said: 
 
 "Do you know, I am much int 'rested in 
 humoh !" Just like that ! I knew I was in for 
 it. Anybody who makes three syllables of in- 
 terested and leaves the r off of humor is to be 
 approached more in sorrow than in anger. 
 He is devoid. So I answered him gently, 
 with soothing nothings. 
 
 He went on, "Do you know, a friend of mine 
 said something very humorous and original the 
 other day, and I wanted to tell you about it." 
 
 "Yes?" I breathed. 
 
 "Yes, I spoke to him over the telephone, 
 you know, and he said, 'Good morning! 
 You are looking well' just as if he could 
 see me, you know ! And it was at the 'phone !" 
 
 I felt very badly indeed about this. I knew 
 that if a man could laugh at a wheeze so an- 
 cient as that, he would have to be answered in 
 some ancient way. So fumbling panickily 
 around among the shelves of memory I jerked 
 
 19 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 out the oldest and moldiest one I could find, 
 and answered : 
 
 "Ha, ha! The first time I heard that one, 
 I kicked the side out of my cradle." 
 
 "O!" he cried in delight, "that int'rests me 
 also. Is it possible your sense of humoh de- 
 veloped so young!" 
 
 Can you beat it? I did! 
 
 Sometimes (thank heaven the cases are be- 
 coming rarer) we find a minister of the gospel 
 who is devoid of a saving sense of humor, and 
 when such a case exists tragedy is always 
 either present or impending. While a min- 
 ister has as good right as any other human be- 
 ing to the use of humor where and when it can 
 further his work, he is not supposed to be for- 
 ever jesting. Yet he ought by all means to 
 have enough of a sense of humor so that he may 
 avoid jesting when he shouldn't jest. He 
 should have it for defense if not for aggression. 
 I know a minister who has all the bubbling 
 sense of humor that one finds in a whetstone or 
 
 20 
 
THE .HUMORLESS PERSON 
 
 a cake of soap. And once he sprung a giddy 
 jest at the very moment when he wished to be 
 most solemnly impressive. You have heard 
 the story. It illustrates perfectly the point I 
 wish to make. One morning this minister was 
 in his pulpit It was one of those perfect Sab- 
 bath mornings. You would have known it 
 was Sunday if you hadn't seen a calendar for 
 six years. The sun was shining just warm 
 enough and not too warm. The middle panels 
 of the windows were atilt to let in the fresh 
 May breeze. Spring's tenderest green was on 
 the trees. The light filtered in through the 
 vari-colored memorials, giving weird and visi- 
 ble glory to everything within. The birds 
 were singing softly outside. The Sabbath 
 hush had fallen awhile over the congregation. 
 The organ voluntary had been played ; the cash 
 involuntary had been taken away from them; 
 the minister had read the scripture lesson and 
 made his announcements, there had been 
 prayer and a hymn, the weekly notices were 
 
 21 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 read, and then the minister announced his text. 
 I don't remember what the text was I have 
 bad luck remembering texts. But I know very 
 well what he was talking about the infinite 
 care the Creator had given to things that seem 
 to us such trifles as to be almost negligible. 
 He said: 
 
 "The same hand that made the mighty moun- 
 tains that lift their snow-clad and unsullied 
 sierras into the overarching blue of the sky, 
 made the tiniest grain of sand that lies at the 
 range's base; the same hand that made the 
 marvelous ocean that thunders ceaselessly and 
 restlessly across the golden sands, made the 
 tiniest drop of dew that glistens like a first- 
 water gem upon every grass-blade at the dawn- 
 ing. And the hand that made me, (throwing 
 out his chest like a pouter-pigeon), made a 
 daisy!" 
 
 He probably still wonders why that congre- 
 gation laughed, but I see you know. 
 
 22 
 
DISGUISED COMEDIES 
 
 DISGUISED COMEDIES 
 
 And sometimes we have experiences that are 
 tragedies to us while they are going on, but 
 that afterward turn out to have been comedies 
 all the time, in a thin but deceptive disguise. 
 
 Providence writes the play, assigns us to our 
 part, rehearses us for it, puts us through the 
 performance, sets the scenery and stage-man- 
 ages the whole thing, but never lets us see 
 the script of any except our own part. Some- 
 times we are such grotesque figures in the play 
 that we resent it. We think we are playing 
 tragedy ; but when the years have gone by and 
 we can see it all in perspective without the fore- 
 shortening effect of self-interest and our own 
 feelings, we sense the comedy and understand. 
 So many of us are but character comedians 
 when we think we are tragedians ! 
 
 Take the average every-day tragedy that 
 comes into your life. You say, "Well, I'd like 
 to sob over that for a week or two. But I'm 
 
 23 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 so busy right now with other things. I'll put 
 this away in mothballs and when I get time 
 I'll do it justice." You put it away wrapped 
 carefully in jewelers' cotton and some day 
 when you think you have time for a good bawl- 
 fest, you unwrap it and burst out laughing! 
 Somebody had switched the label on you; and 
 it had been a comedy all the while. 
 
 You see, it had got on your feelings before, 
 and now it was off from them. Watching a 
 dentist when you sit down in his chair, you see 
 him lay out a row of little jiggers that look like 
 stunted crochet-needles. You shut your eyes 
 and open your mouth and he rams a telegraph 
 pole into the midst of the sorest tooth you ever 
 had. After awhile you open your eyes and 
 there are those same dainty little tools again 
 the tool was big because it was on your feelings. 
 
 Well, one time I had such an experience that 
 seemed tragedy till the softening and sanify- 
 ing hand of time had reduced it to its right pro- 
 portion. It was one night a few winters ago 
 
 24 
 
DISGUISED COMEDIES 
 
 when I had to start on a hurry-up trip from 
 Baltimore to Boston. Boston was short on 
 culture at the time and I had to be quick. 
 Sort of first-aid to the injured, you know. I 
 got the message late at night and had to start 
 almost instantly. It was at a time when there 
 had been a lot of bad storms tearing up and 
 down that turbulent old Atlantic Coast rain, 
 hail, snow, deluges, cloudbursts and everything 
 like that. It was, to be accurate in the matter, 
 at just the time when the Pennsylvania Rail- 
 road Company's old Union Station at Balti- 
 more had been washed out. You may never 
 have heard of this. I don't blame you. 
 There were people living within two blocks of 
 that station who didn't know it was ever washed 
 out. But I knew it. I was right there and 
 saw the janitors do it. It was at that unholy 
 hour of the morning between one and two when 
 the caretakers of a railway station begin to 
 massage and manicure and chiropodize and 
 marcel the floors. They had gathered up all 
 
 25 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 the iron cuspidors and put them up on the seats 
 where the other folks usually sat; they had 
 taken the perforated rubber mats and fes- 
 tooned them over the ticket-windows, the news- 
 stands and the inflammation bureau, and then 
 they had started to mop out. I was mopped 
 out with the other foreign substances and 
 debris, and I was walking back and forth out- 
 side the waiting room, with a heavy grip hang- 
 ing to each hand, wishing to goodness my bed- 
 room would hurry up and come along. All 
 of a sudden, while my eyes were nearly shut 
 with sleepiness and my knees wabbling with 
 weariness, I saw a sign stuck up on the fence. 
 You know the fence I mean that tall, spiky 
 iron picket fence they have in city stations to 
 keep the passengers from all going out and get- 
 ting on the train before it comes. That's the 
 very fence I mean. Well, that sign they had 
 stuck up there hadn't any sense in it at all. 
 Most stuck-up things haven't. If I had been 
 at myself, I shouldn't have paid any attention 
 
 26 
 
DISGUISED COMEDIES 
 
 to that silly sign. But I was a desperate man. 
 I was willing to try anything, once, that offered 
 any relief. That sign said: "Use This Gate 
 for Sleeper !" 
 
 I went up and examined that inviting gate. 
 It seemed a poor prospect. I never felt a 
 harder gate in my whole life. But the hard- 
 ness alone wouldn't have scared me off. I 
 have become accustomed and toughened and 
 calloused to those macadamized mattresses they 
 have in some boardinghouses and hotels. The 
 kind that make you dream you are sleeping 
 on the dining room table with none of the dishes 
 removed. So the hardness alone wouldn't have 
 disturbed me, but the bars were so wide apart 
 and so up-and-down I didn't see how anybody 
 of my corpulent build could even adhere to 
 them without at least a few lessons by mail 
 from Scranton, Pa., so I let the gate alone and 
 waited till the other and more conventional ar- 
 rangement came in. 
 
 Finally that car did thunder into the sta- 
 27 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 tion a great long car as long as this building, 
 with a nice, poetic name on the side, like Ma- 
 laria, or Sarsaparilla, or Pyorrhea, or Skow- 
 hegan, or Sciatica or some such name as they 
 always paint on a sleeping-car they wouldn't 
 dare paint it on a car that wasn't sleeping; any 
 car that was awake would fight back! That 
 car rolled in and I stumbled through the gate- 
 way and fell up the steps. As I did so I 
 started down that endless aisle you know 
 that aisle, with its double row of green brocaded 
 curtains down to the floor on each side, with 
 a double chorus of green, brocaded snores in 
 every tone of voice to which human flesh is heir, 
 from prima donna soprano down to basso pro 
 thundero everything that Oscar Hammer- 
 stein had ever dreamed of! They had never 
 rehearsed together before and they weren't re- 
 hearsing together then, by about four octaves. 
 But they were rehearsing, all right! They 
 never missed a snort or skipped a grunt while 
 I listened. And that chorus was going up 
 
 28 
 
DISGUISED COMEDIES 
 
 through the ventilators into the uneasy night 
 it was awful! Right in the middle of this 
 tunnel of horrors and snores and things I met 
 the conductor of this sleeping-car, also of this 
 orchestra. And I said to him, as sleepily as 
 a tired child ever told its tireder mother good- 
 night, "What can you give me?" And he 
 looked at me with complete amazement as he 
 said, "What do you want?" I said, "What do 
 I want ! In a sleeping-car at 2 G. M., with one 
 eye tight shut and the other going out of busi- 
 ness what do I want ! I want a dime's worth 
 of cranberries and a bucket of lard." And 
 then a peculiar thing took place ; in some way 
 or other without my explaining it a particle, 
 that sleeping-car conductor, with almost human 
 intelligence seemed to understand what I was 
 in there for; and he said, rather sheepishly, 
 this time, "Upper ten?" 
 
 "Well," I said, "the people who have traced 
 my family the furthest back, say I'm not. But 
 if I make that impression on a total stranger 
 
 29 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 this way, this is surely a proud moment in my 
 life." 
 
 Well, we talked the matter over a little more 
 earnestly and intelligently than that, and 
 finally we split the difference I took lower 
 five. 
 
 I started to get into that upholstered dog- 
 house, and the real trouble set in. I suppose 
 every one of you, some time or other, has had 
 that same helpless, easy-mark experience, away 
 off from home somewhere, at the dead and 
 buried of night, among total and snoring 
 strangers, handing out to some man you never 
 saw or heard of before, a nice, long, green, ac- 
 cordion-plaited ticket that cost you about 
 eleven dollars and sixty-eight cents a yard, 
 without war tax, fondly hoping to get that 
 same ticket back in the morning out of that 
 mess he shoves into his pocket! Now if that 
 doesn't require faith, what does, I'd like to 
 know? I always recite this little involuntary 
 perversion of a familiar prayer: 
 
 30 
 
DISGUISED COMEDIES 
 
 Now I lay me down to sleep; 
 
 The train man will my ticket keep. 
 But should he die before I wake, 
 
 What could I do, for goodness' sake! 
 
 After offering up this pitiful petition I 
 bumped my head the customary number of 
 times against that upper berth that they always 
 let down whether anybody's going to roost up 
 there or not I don't know why, unless it's for 
 a sounding board and then started to get un- 
 der that blanket. Please remember, I said 
 "started" to get under it. Now whoever had 
 laid out the ground plans and specifications of 
 that foolish blanket that is, whoever had made 
 the original government survey for that 
 blanket, hadn't been thinking of me at the 
 time, at all. He had been thinking of some 
 much briefer person than I am. That blanket 
 was the short way both ways. But I started 
 to get under it and when I start anything I am 
 so stubborn that I keep right on working at it 
 till I get the answer somehow. So I kept on 
 
 31 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 working at that doily, till I got under it. I 
 got every bit of me under it. But not all at 
 once! Mercy no! I wasn't simultaneously 
 under it. That is, I wasn't unanimously un- 
 der it. I'm not sure there was a working ma- 
 jority of me under it at any one time during 
 the night. I got under it on the installment 
 plan. That is, I got under it by sections. 
 And as fast as one panel of me got under it, 
 the one that had been under just before, got 
 out. 
 
 I kept this up for quite awhile, playing hide 
 and seek and ring around a rosy and drop-the- 
 handkerchief and prisoner's base with myself, 
 until I got warm I got too warm! with the 
 exercise, and too tired to keep it up. I won- 
 dered what to do next. I couldn't be a hu- 
 man merry-go-around or a pin-wheel all night. 
 I tried to remember what the school-books on 
 hygiene had said, whether it was better to 
 freeze the toes or the adam's apple. I couldn't 
 remember I was too confused. But while I 
 
 32 
 
DISGUISED COMEDIES 
 
 was puzzled over it an inspiration came to me. 
 I took the top sheet and tore it in two, wrapped 
 one half of it about my shuddering shoulders, 
 the other half about my well-developed Ohio 
 feet, and the blanket over the remainder of me. 
 And there I lay, looking like a Red Cross pa- 
 tient in an ambulance, and feeling like Mother 
 Earth in the old climate maps that showed the 
 world with torrid and temperate zones near the 
 equator, and frozen at the extremities. 
 
 And just to show you that the great Ameri- 
 can bonehead we have always with us, I told 
 that story pretty much the same way not very 
 long ago to an audience of two thousand souls 
 and three bolsheviki in a Southern Indiana 
 town, and they laughed in the right places. 
 When I told of the sarcastic answer, about 
 cranberries and other groceries, that I had 
 given the foolish sleeping-car conductor when 
 he asked me what I wanted in his sleeper, they 
 lay down on the benches and wept for joy. I 
 thought "My, such nice, bright people!" But 
 
 33 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 when it was all over and I was on my way back 
 to the management's tent, I was overtaken by 
 one of the directors of the chautauqua, his wife 
 with him, who grabbed me by the coat and said : 
 
 "That sleeping-car thing was the funniest 
 thing we ever heard. We thought we'd die. 
 But, just to settle a dispute, what did you want 
 with those cranberries?^) 
 
 I didn't tell them. They seemed to have 
 figured out somehow what I wanted with the 
 lard I suppose it was to "shorten" the 
 journey. 
 
 But while I was fooling with those abbreviated 
 bed-clothes and trying to decide which part of 
 me had better go into cold storage, I think I 
 must have been in almost as bad a fix as the 
 man my dear old friend , yes, and your dear old 
 friend, Bob Burdette now gone to a glorious 
 reward if there is in heaven the justice I be- 
 lieve there is told me about. This is the only 
 story I use that I had no hand in building. 
 So I am immensely prouder both of the story 
 
 34 
 
DISGUISED COMEDIES 
 
 and of its author than of any other thing I shall 
 give you. "Bob" said: "Boy, you are com- 
 ing onto the platform and I am stepping off. 
 I leave you this story as a legacy." Just a 
 word here, before I tell this story a word of 
 tribute from one great humorist to another 
 no, I am not the one great humorist referred 
 to, and mine is not the tribute. I was talking 
 with the late James Whitcomb Riley about 
 our mutual friend Burdette. Riley knew and 
 loved the man, and we were agreeing beauti- 
 fully about him. I remarked, apropos of the 
 sweet sincerity of Mr. Burdette: 
 
 "When Bob Burdette says 'God bless you/ 
 he means it." 
 
 "Yes," quickly replied Mr. Riley, "and so 
 does God, when Bob says it." 
 
 That was more tribute to the square inch 
 than I ever saw crowded into a single short 
 sentence. But here is the yarn, which shows 
 about the worst possible case of suspense : 
 
 Once upon a time two men were crossing a 
 35 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 large field. And when they had got to the 
 middle of the field a big, brindle bull came along 
 to show them the nearest way to the fence. 
 One of the men found a tree and he climbed it 
 as rapidly as possible. The other man couldn't 
 get to the tree in time, but seeing a large, so- 
 ciable-looking hole in the ground, he jumped 
 into the hole. The bull made a lunge for him 
 and just missed him as he went down, and 
 jumped over the hole. The man came up 
 again; the bull turned, saw him, snorted and 
 came back at him. Down went the man, over 
 went the bull, up came the man, back came the 
 bull, till the man up in the tree got excited, and 
 called down: 
 
 "You big fool you, why don't you stay down 
 in that hole? You'll get that bull so mad he'll 
 keep us here all summer!" 
 
 The man in the hole yelled back : 
 
 "Big fool yourself! There's a bear in this 
 hole!" 
 
 36 
 
THE PATHOS-MINGLED KIND 
 
 THE PATHOS-MINGLED KIND 
 
 But there are other kinds of humor besides 
 that of stupidity and situation. There is a 
 purely rustic humor that is in a class to itself. 
 It is so close to nature that always it borders 
 on pathos one never knows when it is going 
 to slip over the line and be the other thing for 
 a moment, or how long it will stay away when 
 it leaves us. Real humor and pathos are both 
 emotional. And they lie so closely snuggled 
 up to each other in the human breast that you 
 can't cut them apart without drawing blood 
 on both. 
 
 An instance of that kind may be found in the 
 story of an old man who had been poor all his 
 life up to his sixtieth year, when a war baby 
 or the discovery of oil removed his financial 
 worries. His education had been neglected, 
 but he had always been unusually fond of 
 music. He spent his money freely following 
 about the country everything that was called 
 
 37 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 music and some things that were music. Any- 
 thing to gratify that master passion of his. 
 But he had come back in his still older days to 
 his first love in music as most of us do in most 
 things, and he firmly believed that the first 
 "concourse of sweet sounds" that had thrilled 
 his boyish being from core to rind was the best 
 yet. And this is what he told me about it: 
 
 THE OLD CABINET ORGAN 
 
 I've heerd Vic Herbert an 5 his gang, I've heerd Phil 
 
 Sowzy's band ! 
 
 I've heerd th' best musicianers they is in all th' land. 
 I've heerd them nail-mill pieces 'at they blame ol' 
 
 Wagner fer ; 
 But nothin' 'mongst 'em one an' all hez made my 
 
 feelin's stir 
 Like that ol' cab'net organ, with but jest eight stops 
 
 in all, 
 A-settin' in our ol' best room, backed up agin' th' 
 
 wall, 
 With th' organ agent playin' it while we all stood 
 
 around, 
 An' none of us a breathin' lest we'd lose a single 
 
 sound 
 
 38 
 
THE PATHOS-MINGLED KIND 
 
 The day that organ come t' us, I'll al'ays hev in 
 
 mind 
 Till this ol' head gits chilly, an' these glimmerin' 
 
 eyes gits blind; 
 My big school-teacher sister'd ben away frum home 
 
 a spell, 
 An' ben a takin' lessons till she played some things 
 
 right well; 
 An' nothin' else'd do 'er when she drawed her winter's 
 
 But she must hev a organ like the one she'd lairned 
 
 t' play ; 
 
 Us folks all sort o' pooh-poohed at th' idee fer awhile, 
 But ye know th' one that aims it is th' one t' spend 
 
 th' pile., 
 
 An' I wuz jest a goin' on t' tell how it got out 
 Amongst th' organ agents, what our gal hed thought 
 
 about ; 
 But I hain't nary idee; cause she hedn't said a 
 
 thing 
 It must 'a' ben some sparrer jest a passin' on th' 
 
 wing 
 'At ketched th' word an' tuck it; cause it wa'n't a 
 
 week, I guess, 
 Afore that gal wuz wear in' ev'ry day her Sunday 
 
 dress, 
 
 39 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 A-entertainin' men *at sold, each one, th' highest 
 
 grade, 
 An' th' hollyhocks wuz smothered with th' dust their 
 
 wagons made! 
 
 Bimeby two fellers lugged one up th' steps an' in th' 
 
 door, 
 
 An' set it in th' best room, an' begin t' make it roar 
 An' whine an' howl an' tootle like a steam pianner 
 
 goes 
 Ye ort t' seen us men-folks in th' field throw down 
 
 our hoes 
 An' stop th' plows an' ev'ry thing, an' jest go on th' 
 
 run, 
 A-wipin' sweat an' tearin' on, right through th' bilin' 
 
 sun 
 Till we stood, in silent wonder, thinkin', 'mid them 
 
 thrillin' strains, 
 Thoughts of instermental music, jest as crude as 
 
 Jubal Cain's! 
 
 That best room, with rag carpets an' its chromos on 
 
 th' wall, 
 Spread out, an' got lots bigger'n th' biggest concert 
 
 hall; 
 An' sev'ral of us turned away t' cough an' wipe our 
 
 eyes, 
 
 40 
 
THE PATHOS-MINGLED KIND 
 
 While th' clouds seemed floatin' under us, we got that 
 
 clost th' skies. 
 Well, 'fore them fellers left, I guess they knowed 
 
 they'd made a sale, 
 At prices that made us folks think th' organ men'd 
 
 fail. 
 
 Th' fellers said themselves it wuz th' very lowest price 
 They got fer other organs, t'wuzn't half so big, ner 
 
 nice. 
 
 Then all th' family only Pap tuck turns at tryin' 
 
 t' play ; 
 W'y mother ust t' set an' gouge out tunes fer half a 
 
 day! 
 An' ev'ry one 'at hit th' stool commenced t' feel 
 
 around 
 An' dig up "Jesus Lover," with one finger, jest b* 
 
 sound. 
 The neighbors, settin' on th' porch, 'way after set o* 
 
 sun, 
 Looked solemn, in th' moonlight, thinkin' what our 
 
 gal hed done 
 A-squanderin' her money fer a organ, when she 
 
 knowed 
 She orto gone an' paid it on th' debts her daddy 
 
 owed! 
 
 41 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 I've heerd Walt. Damrosch an' his gang, I've heerd 
 
 Phil Sowzy's band ! 
 
 I've heerd th' best musicianers they is in all th' land ; 
 I've heerd them 'sault an' batteries they blame ol' 
 
 Wagner fer 
 In fact I've listened to 'bout all they is, 'at's made a 
 
 stir; 
 
 But when in dreams I think I hear th' blessed heav- 
 enly choirs 
 An' big arch-angels pummelin' celestial harps an' 
 
 lyres, 
 That music then reminds me (ef my thoughts tetch 
 
 airth at all) 
 Of that eight-stop cab'net organ shoved agin our 
 
 best-room wall. 
 
 ANIMAL HUMOR 
 
 And the sense of humor is not confined to the 
 human race. Animals have it, I am sure. 
 At least they have that lowest, most rudimen- 
 tary and chaplinesque type that characterizes 
 the practical joker. One bit of evidence in be- 
 half of the four-legged sense of humor pops 
 into my mind just now. We had a sheep on 
 our Southern Ohio farm not a lady sheep. 
 
 42 
 
ANIMAL HUMOR 
 
 His forehead was about eleven times harder 
 than the celebrated Rock of Gibraltar. His 
 might well have been the original marble brow 
 written of so much by the poets. It was hard 
 enough to be granite. My brother and I, with 
 boyish zeal for certain kinds of things, had 
 spent a great deal of my father's time teaching 
 that Southdown sheep etiquette. And he had 
 been an apt pupil. We had specialized on 
 teaching him that it was bad manners for any- 
 one to turn a back on him. The sheep got this 
 point easily. Any one who was so foolish as to 
 turn his back on that sheep immediately re- 
 gretted it. As a regret-foundry that sheep 
 was a success. You furnished the back, he fur- 
 nished the regret fifty-fifty. 
 
 About the time this story begins, I was en- 
 gaged in the delightful process of teaching a 
 young calf how to drink milk out of a bucket. 
 Any one who ever attempted to wean a calf 
 away from the parent stem and induce it to 
 take nourishment otherwise, knows what I was 
 
 43 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 "up against." You take the calf by one ear 
 and the tail, back it into a fence corner, stand 
 astride its neck, put two fingers of one hand 
 in its mouth, fingers you may never need 
 again the heel of the other hand on the back 
 of its hard but empty head, shove its nose down 
 in the milk, and keep it there. The calf blows 
 bubbles for a long time. Al out the time it 
 has made enough lather to sha T e with and you 
 think it is choked to death but are afraid it 
 isn't, it pulls its nose out of the bucket and 
 snorts. When it does this combination snort 
 and cough, the air is crowded with sprayed 
 milk, for a quarter of a mile in eight directions. 
 You get your share. Anybody who has ever 
 taught as many as four or five calves to drink 
 from a bucket never needs to drink milk during 
 the rest of his life. He is saturated to his 
 marrow, already and for keeps, and when the 
 sun shines hot on him he curdles. 
 
 After a few of these stunts, the calf purely 
 by accident swallows some milk. He never 
 
 44 
 
ANIMAL HUMOR 
 
 meant to. Then he sees a great light, and 
 from that time on the work is easier. 
 
 But about one calf out of every five hundred 
 is a congenital idiot and won't learn to drink 
 at all. This one I was working with at that 
 time was the five-hundredth calf. He was a 
 little, roan, congenital idiot. He had had his 
 fourth or fifth lesson and wasn't through with 
 the finger exercises! Couldn't even run the 
 scales! We were getting a little discouraged 
 about him. Just at this stage of things that 
 sheep of ours had been turned into the calf 
 lot the calf cafe, as it were. I had to keep 
 one eye on the calf and one on the sheep. I 
 nearly became permanently wall-eyed from 
 the experience. Mother was impatiently 
 watching me. The milking was late that 
 morning anyway, and it was hot, and I should 
 have been in the harvest field long before. Be- 
 ing the youngest boy on the farm I was of 
 course expected to do a full day's work at the 
 house and another one in the field, which is a 
 
 45 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 hard thing to do in one day when a fellow 
 isn't twins. Mother said: 
 
 "Quit fooling with that sheep, and feed that 
 calf!" 
 
 I said: "Mother, I know why I'm watch- 
 ing that sheep." 
 
 She said: "Give me that bucket." 
 
 I hated to do it. She was the only mother 
 I had. If I had had a whole scad of mothers I 
 wouldn't have cared so much. 
 
 Mother had always told us we should mind 
 without talking back. I thought this would 
 be a good time to try it out. So I didn't talk 
 back. I handed her the bucket and stepped 
 out through the gate, whistling softly to my- 
 self that old war-time melody, "Just before the 
 battle, Mother," with "Farewell, Mother, you 
 may never press me to your heart again" 
 you know the piece and hoping to goodness 
 he wouldn't hit her as hard as he could. 
 
 Mother actually turned her back on that 
 sheep and began dabbling her hand in the milk, 
 
 46 
 
A DIFFERENT MEMORY 
 
 saying, "Sook, calfy, sook, calfy!" seductively 
 while the calf gave her the evil eye and walked 
 backward. 
 
 That sheep turned his head on one side as 
 much as to say: 
 
 "M-m-m-m! Do my eyes deceive me! 
 Has somebody actually had the nerve to turn 
 a back this way? Has opportunity knocked 
 at my door?" 
 
 He trotted up stiff -legged behind her, struck 
 her gently, just back of the knees, and she sat 
 down flat on the grass, spilling every drop of 
 that milk on herself. And when she arose and 
 looked around to address a few well-chosen 
 and sincere words to that sheep, he was a hun- 
 dred yards off, with his face the other way, 
 while his sides shook with as hearty laughter as 
 I have ever seen. 
 
 A DIFFERENT MEMORY 
 
 But whenever I tell that grotesque story, 
 true though it is when shorn of its embellish- 
 
 47 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 ments, I find in myself a fear lest some person 
 some time in some audience may have the opin- 
 ion that a man labeled a humorist has no other 
 kind of recollection of the sort of mother I had. 
 And just to show you the difference, and to 
 let you know there are other more vivid and in- 
 fluential memories than that one, I'm going 
 to give you a pretty sharp contrast a memory 
 that arose later in life, a poem that my heart 
 dictated and which my hand put down in writ- 
 ing. 
 
 You know every human who grows up and 
 does any thinking, passes through a stage of 
 religious green sweats, when he thinks, with a 
 delighted thrill, that he is an infidel and de- 
 liciously wicked and maybe all the good folks 
 are holding prayer-meetings about him. 
 Eventually, if he has been properly brought 
 up, he returns to the faith of his fathers and 
 mothers, and the seething stops. About the 
 time when sanity threatened to return to me 
 and I was genuinely uneasy lest the old faith 
 
 48 
 
A DIFFERENT MEMORY 
 
 might have deserted me forever, my heart, as 
 I have said, dictated this poem to my hand: 
 
 THE CRY OF THE ALIEN 
 
 I'm an alien I'm an alien to the faith my mother 
 
 taught me; 
 I'm an alien to the God that heard my mother 
 
 when she cried; 
 I'm a stranger to the comfort that my "Now I lay 
 
 me" brought me, 
 To the Everlasting Arms that held my father when 
 
 he died. 
 I hare spent a life-time seeking things I spurned when 
 
 I had found them ; 
 
 I have fought and been rewarded in many a win- 
 ning cause; 
 
 But I'd take them all fame, fortune and the pleas- 
 ures that surround them, 
 
 And exchange them for the faith that made my 
 mother what she was. 
 
 I was born where God was closer to His children 
 
 and addressed them 
 With the tenderest of messages through bird and 
 
 tree and bloom; 
 
 I was bred where people stretched upon the velvet 
 sod to rest them, 
 
 49 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 Where the twilight's benediction robbed the com- 
 ing night of gloom. 
 
 But I've built a wall between me and the simple life 
 behind me ; 
 
 I have coined my heart and paid it for the fickle 
 
 world's applause; 
 
 Yet I think His hand would fumble through the 
 voiceless dark and find me 
 
 If I only had the faith that made my mother what 
 she was. 
 
 When the great world came and called me I deserted 
 
 all to follow ; 
 Never knowing, in my dazedness, I had slipped my 
 
 hand from His 
 Never noting, in my blindness, that the bauble fame 
 
 was hollow, 
 That the gold of wealth was tinsel, as I since have 
 
 learned it is 
 No, I've spent a life-time seeking things I've spurned 
 
 when I have found them; 
 I have fought and been rewarded in many a petty 
 
 cause ; 
 
 But I'd trade them all fame, fortune and the pleas- 
 ures that surround them, 
 
 For a little of the faith that made my mother what 
 she was. 
 
 50 
 
HUMOR FROM AFFLICTION 
 
 HUMOR FROM AFFLICTION 
 
 There is also the humor of affliction. We 
 should never have a disposition mean enough 
 to laugh at an affliction itself, but there are 
 situations that grow out of affliction that are 
 funny even to the victims of them. It is fine 
 when the victim of the affliction can laugh at 
 it instead of wearing it as a chip on the shoul- 
 der. You know the story of the old lady who 
 was deaf and whose son had accumulated, at 
 college, a friend named Specknoodle. Com- 
 ing home for the holidays son brought Speck- 
 noodle with him. Undertaking to introduce 
 him to Mother, the boy made heavy weather 
 of it. In a loud tone he said: "Mother, this 
 is Mr. Specknoodle." 
 
 The lady looked wildly at her son and said : 
 "What did you say?" 
 
 "I say," said the son in a still louder voice, 
 "this is Mr. Specknoodle." 
 
 Cupping her hand to her ear the old lady 
 51 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 again said: "Would you please say that 
 again, son? I didn't get it, I fear/' 
 
 Bracing himself and lifting his voice to a 
 yell, the blushing young man again announced : 
 "This is Mister Specknoodle!" 
 
 The lady shook her head sadly and said: 
 "Son, we'll just have to give it up. I can't 
 make a thing out of it but Specknoodle." 
 
 Another signal instance of the humor that 
 comes from trouble is the story of the stammer- 
 ing farm-hand who worked for a deaf farmer. 
 Anybody can see there would be trouble there, 
 right along. It was a fearful combination. 
 
 The line was always "busy." One morning 
 the old man wanted the young man to do some 
 work, while the young man tried to tell the 
 farmer the cows were in the corn. Finally the 
 old man got the idea, and was peeved. 
 
 "You stutterin' fool, you!" he yelled. 
 
 "I c-c-can t-talk as f-f-f-fast as y-you can 
 h-h-hear me!" answered the hand. 
 
 Stammerers enjoy their own affliction-born 
 52 
 
HUMOR FROM AFFLICTION 
 
 humor, and are usually witty. One of the wit- 
 tiest men this country has known was William 
 Travers of Baltimore and New York, famil- 
 iarly known as "Stutterin' Bill" Travers. 
 When Travers had been living awhile in New 
 York, a Baltimore friend met him and had con- 
 versation with him. After a bit the Baltimore 
 man said: "Bill, you stutter worse here than 
 you did in Baltimore." 
 
 "B-b-b-bigger town," explained Bill. 
 
 Absentmindedness should be regarded more 
 as an affliction than as a fault. We all know 
 some absentminded people whose queer capers 
 will furnish us plenty of illustrations without 
 me supplying any. This one instance, how- 
 ever, fell beneath my own observation. On 
 the Lackawanna, between New York and 
 Dover, N. J., I saw a man dreamily eating a 
 banana, beside an open window. The con- 
 ductor came through just as the man had fin- 
 ished his banana. He threw his ticket out of 
 the window and handed the banana peel to the 
 
 53 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 conductor. They had one awful argument 
 about it ; the man insisting that the conductor 
 knew he had a ticket, and the conductor in- 
 sisting that a stale banana peel would be re- 
 garded as a queer thing to turn in with his re- 
 port. Would look like a skin game on the 
 company. 
 
 Another well-known case of the humor of 
 affliction is that of a young traveling man friend 
 of mine who had been on the road just a lit- 
 tle while not long enough to acquire the 
 galvanized stomach-lining which is our lot 
 later on. One time he went into a place in 
 Southwestern Missouri, which was called a 
 restaurant. It really wasn't that. Its right 
 name was "appetite cure." It worked just 
 like this : You went in there hungry, ordered 
 a meal, took one good look at the meal and 
 then you weren't hungry. Just like that. 
 You merely tightened your belt and went 
 away. This young man went in while waiting 
 for his train. The tablecloth first attracted his 
 
 54 
 
HUMOR FROM AFFLICTION 
 
 attention. His attention was not the first 
 thing that tablecloth had attracted. It had 
 been a very attractive tablecloth and all it had 
 attracted had staid there. That cloth con- 
 tained an accurate, wholly authentic and fully 
 illustrated history of everything that had been 
 served on it for the past two years. There 
 were petrified coffee drops in the sugar-bowl, 
 and day-before-yesterday's soft-boiled rem- 
 nants were dried in the spoons. About the 
 time he had horrifiedly invoiced this display, the 
 girl who was going to wait on him came in. 
 She was funny looking. She would have been 
 taller if she had laid down. She was a pe- 
 culiar-looking girl with a peculiar walk in life. 
 Did you ever see anybody bring in a backlog 
 that was too big to lift? They just thump it 
 in one corner at a time. That is the way she 
 came in. She threw down a limp napkin, a 
 glass of luke-warm ice-water, a pat of half- 
 melted and anaemic butter, and said: 
 "Hashbeef srteakandcoldmeats ?" 
 55 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 "What's that?" he inquired in alarm. It 
 sounded like some new dish, and did not sound 
 appetizing. 
 
 "HashbeefsteaMiamandeggsandcoldmeats," 
 she amended and repeated. 
 
 He didn't want it. In a state half of panic, 
 half of despair, he thought and thought. He 
 tried to conjure up from memory something 
 that had at sometime or other goaded a jaded 
 appetite and made it sit up and take notice. 
 Then in mingled hope and fear, thinking of the 
 daintiest food he had ever eaten, he looked up 
 at the girl and said: 
 
 "Have you got frog's legs?" 
 
 "No," she answered calmly, "rheumatiz." 
 
 A friend of mine in Philadelphia has no 
 more hair than is worn by the average porce- 
 lain nest-egg. One day he went into a refec- 
 tory for some chocolate. As he sat down, the 
 girl who was to serve him seemed fascinated 
 by that glittering summit of his. She took his 
 order in a trance, and drew the beverage in 
 
 56 
 
HUMOR FROM AFFLICTION 
 
 preoccupied fashion. After tasting the con- 
 tents of the cup the patron looked up at her 
 with some protest in his eyes and voice and 
 said: 
 
 "Say, girl, my cocoa's cold." 
 
 "Well, put your hat on then/' she advised. 
 
 A newspaper friend of mine who lives in 
 Sioux City, Iowa, is passionately devoted to 
 pig's feet. They are the fondest thing he is of. 
 Every now and then a pig's feet thirst over- 
 whelms him and leaves him helpless and com- 
 fortless until he gets them. One time this de- 
 sire for pork wrists attacked him when he was 
 afar from home. Hurrying into the nearest 
 restaurant he looked over the menu card, and 
 by some strange chance the desired article was 
 printed there. He ordered some, fearing the 
 worst and hoping for the best. They came in 
 and were delicious ! He inhaled the first order 
 and sent out for more. The second order fol- 
 lowed the first and he ordered a third cluster. 
 While engaged in disposing of the third batch, 
 
 57 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 he was seized with a violent pain, in his de- 
 partment of the interior, and yelled for help. 
 The waiter was alarmed and hurriedly sent for 
 the doctor, who came tearing in presently to 
 see what was wrong. He found his patient 
 rolling on the floor and groaning loudly. 
 Placing his medicine chest on a chair the phy- 
 sician asked: 
 
 "Smatter, bud?" 
 
 "O, Doc., I've been eating pig's feet, and I 
 guess O, dear me, I'll die! I got too" 
 
 The doctor was at work long before so much 
 of the explanation had been given, saying 
 comfortingly, as he worked, "Pig's feet, eh? 
 Well, I'll soon fix that. Be as patient as you 
 can." 
 
 While talking, he had filled a five-grain gela- 
 tine capsule with a white powder from a vial. 
 Placing the lid on the capsule he handed it and 
 a glass of water to the sufferer and said : 
 
 "Get outside that as promptly as the Lord'll 
 let you." 
 
 58 
 
PAINLESS IDENTIFICATION 
 
 The patient did so, smiled a smile of ineffable 
 joy and sat up, beaming: "Doc.," he said, 
 "that pain's plumb gone. What was that you 
 gave me?" 
 
 "Kelly's foot-ease," answered the doctor. 
 
 PAINLESS IDENTIFICATION 
 
 Still another signal instance in which a 
 human affliction was the absolute and essen- 
 tial basis for the humorous incident : 
 
 There is a hotel man in a small county-seat 
 town in Kansas an Englishman by birth, who 
 stammers. Some time before the world war 
 this gentleman went back to England for a 
 visit to his people. Returning, he counted his 
 money in New York City, and feeling that he 
 had better have a little more, to keep him com- 
 fortable on his way to his Kansas home, he 
 wired to a banker friend of his, named Joe 
 Smith: 
 
 "Send me one hundred and seventy-five dol- 
 lars by telegraph." 
 
 59 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 Mr. Smith at once wired a banking house of 
 New York: 
 
 "Pay to Ed. Wood, on demand, one hundred 
 seventy-five dollars, our account. You may 
 identify Mr. Wood by a stammer." 
 
 He wired Wood to go get the money. 
 
 When Wood had returned to his Kansas 
 town he went at once to his banker friend and 
 said: 
 
 "J-Joe, do you know those bank p-people 
 were certainly n-nice to me/' 
 
 "I'm certainly glad to hear it." 
 
 "They c-certainly w-were. I w-went in 
 there and s-said, 'H-h-have y-you g-g-g-got 
 any m-money here f-for Ed W-Wood?' And 
 they s-said, ' Y-yes, we h-have a h-hundred and 
 s-seventy-five d-ollars.' I said, c Sh-sh-sh-shell 
 'er out.' And they handed it right out with- 
 out a-asking for a w-word of identifi-identifica- 
 tion!" 
 
 Complete ignorance is also an affliction, if 
 there has been no opportunity to avoid it. 
 
 60 
 
PAINLESS IDENTIFICATION 
 
 Take the case of the costermonger picked up 
 on the streets of London to take part in the 
 coronation ceremonies of the present King of 
 England, George the George the well, I've 
 lost his number. But it's probably George 
 the last, as kings are rapidly going out of style 
 on this planet, thank heaven. The committee 
 in charge of the coronation week ceremonies 
 were anxious to produce, among other things, 
 a good representation of the early Roman in- 
 vasion of Britain. They wanted not only to 
 reproduce the uniforms of that day's Roman 
 soldiery, but they wanted even to get physical 
 types if possible. So they took their time look- 
 ing. This costermonger was a genuine find. 
 He not only didn't know anything he didn't 
 even suspect anything. In spite of the fact 
 that he was a complete throw-back, in features, 
 he had never even heard of an ancient Roman. 
 Yet when they offered him four bob a day to 
 wear the costume they should put on him and 
 do nothing but walk about the streets, why 
 
 61 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 should he refuse? But when they began put- 
 ting those foolish clothes on him, he had his 
 doubts and felt like reneging. They put on a 
 three-gallon helmet that felt like a dinner pot, 
 a thin, sleeveless tunic that flapped its scallops 
 about his pelvis, funny-looking sandals, with 
 crossed straps over the instep, gave him a silly 
 shield to carry, and a spear as big as a fence- 
 rail. He felt as if he were being "had," as we 
 say in England, but he had been paid in ad- 
 vance and had spent the money, so he was in no 
 position to back out. Therefore he shame- 
 facedly slunk along at the head of a cluster of 
 other phony Romans, looking far more like a 
 suck-egg dog than any of the fifty-seven varie- 
 ties of conqueror. After he had done this for 
 two or three hours until he was almost worn 
 out, the procession was stopped on a street 
 corner while some hitch in the proceedings 
 should become unhitched. A cold wind sprang 
 up from the channel, and the bogus Roman 
 leader stood there shivering, covered with 
 
 62 
 
BOOMERANG HUMOR 
 
 goose-pimples and confusion. An old lady, 
 who had been watching the proceedings with 
 intense interest and who wanted to show her 
 knowledge in Roman history, adjusted her 
 specs and approached the poor fellow, say- 
 ing, "I beg your pardon are you Appius 
 Claudius?" "No," he answered miserably, 
 "rmun'appyas'ell!" 
 
 BOOMERANG HUMOR 
 
 Again, and perhaps among the saddest of 
 the various kinds of humor, so far as the hu- 
 morist is concerned, is the humor that re- 
 bounds or backfires and hits the dispenser of 
 it between the eyes. Sometimes it hits the 
 joker harder than it hits the jokee. It pains 
 me deeply to speak of this sort, for so many of 
 my own determined efforts have proved to 
 be boomerangs. 
 
 A few years ago I was on my way East 
 from Sioux Falls, S. D., through northern 
 Iowa, on a Rock Island train. The train 
 
 63 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 stopped at Estherville, Iowa, long enough to 
 let the passengers get supper so as to be able 
 to stand the remainder of the trip. Supper 
 was served in an old hotel at that town. The 
 passengers had all been riding along scowling 
 at each other, which is our beautiful and idiotic 
 American custom. Everybody had looked at 
 each other with an expression which meant 
 "You just dare speak to me and see what I 
 do to you!" This same sweet spirit of loving 
 neighborliness went with us into the dining- 
 room, and we sat there in awful silence wait- 
 ing for the meal. You could hear a man swal- 
 low, thirty feet away! The girls were busy 
 setting down the usual canned tomatoes, etc., 
 served in the usual dishes. You know that 
 real egg-shell, genuine china they use at places 
 like that plates an incl thick and side dishes 
 looking like oval whetst nes with a dimple on 
 the upper side ! Well, < girl was busy around 
 my plate when another girl, a few feet away, 
 dropped an enormous stack of those plates* 
 
 64 
 
BOOMERANG HUMOR 
 
 The stack was two feet high she must have 
 had five or six of the plates in it! The crash 
 startled everybody almost made us jump out 
 of our clothes. I saw in the disturbance, I 
 thought, an opportunity to break the gloom. 
 I knew I should have to use something ele- 
 mentary and easy, and I turned to the wooden- 
 faced Winifred or kalsomined Carrie who was 
 waiting on me, and said: 
 
 "Somebody dropped something, eh?" 
 
 "Yes," she answered seriously, "that girl 
 right over there dropped a pile of plates." 
 
 I didn't speak to anybody again for two 
 days. 
 
 Then again, when I was the "goat": One 
 time I attended an afternoon reception and 
 tea-fight, in Chicago. Now any man, who has 
 his health, who attends an afternoon reception 
 where tea is served, deserves whatever happens 
 to him. No fate can be worse than his deserts. 
 I don't know how O, yes, I remember now: 
 It was a reception by the Daughters of the 
 
 65 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 American Revolution. And the lady of the 
 house where I was staying is a member of that, 
 because her father used to run a merry-go- 
 round. A lot of those D. A. R.s get in on an- 
 cestry propositions about as authentic as that. 
 There was just one other man there. I didn't 
 know him or his folks, he didn't know me or 
 mine, but misery drew us together. We 
 leaned against the wall, touching elbows, and 
 talking to each other like long-lost brothers. 
 We even got so far in our delirium as to begin 
 to talk about the other folks there. Danger- 
 ous ! Skating on thin ice ! Finally I pointed 
 to one woman, near by, and said : 
 
 "There! That one with the green dress. 
 She's the last woman I'd ever marry." 
 
 "You're right," said my new friend. "She's 
 the last one I did marry." 
 
 THE WRONG HENRY 
 
 But the worst case I ever knew of the joke 
 rebounding and catching the joker was that of 
 
THE WRONG HENRY 
 
 the scared-to-death man at a mixed banquet. 
 It was a dinner given by and for the members 
 of some fraternity, and the auxiliary members 
 of the other gender. After the eatables had 
 been removed, a program of speeches, etc., was 
 given. A regulation had been made that who- 
 ever was called on for a talk must make good. 
 No slacking. He or she must make a speech, 
 sing a song or tell a story. The whole thing 
 was diabolically concocted to catch one poor 
 fellow there who not only couldn't make a 
 speech one of the commonest of human fail- 
 ings but knew he couldn't, which is one of 
 the rarest of human virtues. They were going 
 to see him suffer. Everybody nudged every- 
 body else and giggled when he was called 
 upon, and the fellow was as badly scared as 
 even his dearest enemy could have hoped. 
 His face was white, his lips were lavender, his 
 eyes protruded till you could have snared them 
 with a rope, his hair was involuntarily pompa- 
 dour, his adam's apple went up and down like 
 
 67 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 an elevator in a department store, his knees 
 were shaking so he had to hold to the table for 
 support he was a sight! He sweat quarts 
 of ice water, his collar was choking him. And 
 the worse he looked the more those cruel peo- 
 ple laughed. Finally when they had laughed 
 themselves out of breath, he faltered out a 
 word he was game, all right. The company 
 gave heed. He said: 
 
 "I g-guess you folks knew I c-couldn't," 
 gulp, "make a sp-speech. That's the reason 
 you called on me. I can always remember 
 every part of a story except its point, and I 
 never sing except for spite. But I wanted to 
 rn-make good this one t-t-time, so I c-came. 
 I read in a book some time ago that you could 
 learn fleas to d-do things. I had a flea that I 
 had been w-wondering about for a good 
 w-while wondering if there was anything 
 else he could do besides what he did most of 
 the t-time. So I tried to learn him and it was 
 easier than I thought. And I brought him 
 
 68 
 
THE WRONG HENRY 
 
 with me tonight, and if you don't care, I'll have 
 him d-do some things." 
 
 Loud applause of astonishment and pleas- 
 ure. "Come on with the trained flea why 
 he's actually going to make good!" 
 
 The man reached down into his vest-pocket 
 and brought out a small, paste-board pill-box 
 a round one, of the sort they give you when 
 you buy a quarter's worth of quinine pills. 
 He put the box down on the table in the middle, 
 where they had smoothed off a place among 
 the smilax for him. Then he removed the 
 lid and said: 
 
 "Jump out, Henry!" 
 
 Henry jumped right out. The box was 
 taken away, and the owner and trainer said: 
 
 "Henry, lie down and roll over." 
 
 Henry did so, as nicely as any trained 
 poodle that ever went on the stage at a pony 
 show. Everybody applauded wildly. Won- 
 derful! The next order was: 
 
 "Henry, play dead!" 
 69 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 Henry obeyed. He played so dead that 
 even his toe-nails were negligee. He was the 
 most satisfactorily dead-looking flea you ever 
 saw. The crowd marveled still more and en- 
 cored heartily. 
 
 "Jump backward, Henry!" 
 
 Henry jumped two or three feet backward. 
 Most astonishing thing they had ever seen. 
 Almost unbelievable that a flea of that size 
 could jump so far. 
 
 "Jump forward, Henry!" 
 
 This time he spoke harshly to Henry, which 
 was a foolish thing to do. Henry was edu- 
 cated, had an artistic temperament was quite 
 a nervous flea, in fact. Speaking sharply to 
 him was a dangerous undertaking. Henry 
 was startled. He jumped further than he had 
 meant to do. He lit on the neck of a lady 
 there who had on one of those one-more-strug- 
 gle-and-I-am-free dresses. 
 
 Now this wasn't the case of the wicked flea 
 and no man pursueth. Henry was a wicked 
 
 70 
 
THE WRONG HENRY 
 
 flea, all right, but several men pursued him. 
 They finally cornered and recaptured him and 
 brought him back to the place of performance. 
 The owner and trainer resumed the show. He 
 put his thumb and forefinger, formed into a 
 ring, in front of Henry and said: 
 
 "Jump through there, sir!" 
 
 Henry didn't move. 
 
 "Henry! Did you hear me? Jump 
 through there, I say!" 
 
 Henry remained motionless. 
 
 "Henry, for the third and last time I tell 
 you to jump through there!" 
 
 Henry was still grossly disobedient. 
 
 What to do? Henry had disobeyed him; 
 had defied him publicly ; had put him to shame 
 before strangers. He must not be allowed to 
 get away with this. He must be disciplined. 
 But first, before punishment, justice must be 
 assured. "Never punish in anger," you know. 
 Maybe Henry had a reason not apparent on 
 the surface. The owner and trainer stooped 
 
 71 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 down, examined Henry from every point of 
 the compass, and then straightened up and said, 
 with mingled relief and accusation in his face : 
 "I beg your pardon, Madam! That isn't my 
 Henry !" 
 
 CHIU>HOOD'S HUMOR 
 
 Enough of the rebounding humor! There 
 are other kinds. The humor of childhood de- 
 serves special mention because it is so differ- 
 ent from all other kinds. It includes a fresh 
 viewpoint of life a complete originality that 
 is pretty thoroughly lacking from the other 
 kinds. An instance of that is in the story of 
 the little boy who had been away from home 
 visiting for a good while, and his mother was 
 just starved to see him. When he came home 
 he was full of information about his visit at 
 Auntie's. Among other things he told of a 
 very bad boy who lived next door to his kins- 
 woman's. 
 
 "An 5 one day," said John, "that bad boy hit 
 72 
 
CHILDHOOD'S HUMOR 
 
 me wif a chunk o' coal, an' he hurt me, too, he 
 did!" John sniveled at the memory of it. 
 
 "He did! Well, of all things !" 
 
 "Yes, he did! But I got even with him, all- 
 righty, allrighty!" 
 
 "How did you do it?" 
 
 "I hit him wif a rock the day before!" 
 
 Children are naturally honest, until the 
 world has corrupted them that is, most of 
 them are. This one was, who told me about a 
 common malady that troubled him : 
 
 THE FIDGETS 
 
 I'm got th' fidgets ; when I go t' bed 
 
 (I sleep wif Billy), I ist scratch my head 
 
 An 5 squirm around an' git th' covers mixed 
 
 Till Billy says, "Aw, goo'ness sakes! Git fixed." 
 
 An' when I try t' tell him how it was, 
 
 He says, "Aw, I'll git up an' slap your jaws !" 
 
 I wake up in th' night most froze t' deff 
 An' hear Bill sayin' fings nunder his breff. 
 'Cause somehow all th' cover's on th' floor, 
 An' Bill says he won't sleep wif me no more 
 
 73 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 Dogged if he will; an' when he swears that way, 
 I f reaten 'at I'll tell our ma next day ! 
 
 Nen Billy he ist helps me snuggle down 
 
 An' tells me I'll be nicest boy in town 
 
 5 F I shouldn't tell, an' when I say "I won't,'* 
 
 He grits 'is teef an' says "You better don't !" 
 
 If they's a fidget doctor anywhere 
 
 I'm goin' t' see him, if my ma don't care. 
 
 But as they grow older, my, how guile 
 creeps in! The average grownup girl's favor- 
 ite indoor sport is making some male being be- 
 lieve she believes what he tells her. Just like 
 this one: 
 
 CROSSED FINGERS 
 
 He said that her kiss was the first he had had; 
 
 But his fingers were crossed. 
 He'd kissed but his mother, when he was a lad; 
 
 But his fingers were crossed. 
 He vowed that not only he'd ne'er had a taste 
 Of rich, ruby lips, but that no other waist 
 Had ever been clasped in his arms ; then in haste 
 
 His two fingers he crossed. 
 74 
 
CHILDHOOD'S HUMOR 
 
 The ring that he gave her he'd bought it that day. 
 
 But his fingers were crossed. 
 No previous maiden had worn it nay, nay ! 
 
 But his fingers were crossed. 
 And never, so long as his life should endure, 
 Could eye, lip or cheek of another maid lure. 
 He knew it ! Past every doubt he was sure. 
 
 But his fingers were crossed. 
 
 She listened to all of this slush he had said 
 
 While his fingers were crossed; 
 She laid on his bosom her wise little head 
 
 While his fingers were crossed; 
 
 Then whispered, so low that that famed "little bird" 
 Who peddles sweet secrets could never have heard, 
 As she said: "O, my boy, I believe every word!" 
 
 But her fingers were crossed. 
 
 Now I am going to do a very mean and con- 
 temptible thing. I am going to take advan- 
 tage of the fact that you are not allowed to 
 talk back, and tell you something about a child 
 of my own. They say "Heaven lies about us 
 in our infancy." So do our parents lie about 
 us, then and later. But this I am about to 
 
 75 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 tell you is the truth. It illustrates the abso- 
 lutely unique child viewpoint the unexpected 
 one. I use my own boy, not because he is 
 brighter than yours (though of course he is) 
 but because I know him more intimately than 
 I know your boy. 
 
 This little fellow of mine is a fiend for land- 
 turtles or terrapins. He finds them in the 
 woods and usually has one or two of them 
 around the place. The mechanism of the 
 brutes is interesting to him. He admires their 
 construction even envies them, when spank- 
 ing time is due. One time when he was a bit 
 past three years old, some of the folks in our 
 house were sick. The doctor not only didn't 
 know what was the matter with them a condi- 
 tion to which we were accustomed but he ad- 
 mitted his ignorance, which was entirely new to 
 us. We were alarmed about him too. He 
 would doctor them for glanders one day and 
 botts the next, and was intending to go through 
 his entire disease list, so that if they didn't get 
 
 76 
 
CHILDHOOD'S HUMOR 
 
 well it would be their fault and not his. We 
 were afraid his library would last longer than 
 the folks afraid his patience would outlast 
 his patients. And the burden of our monoto- 
 nous conversation through these troublous days 
 was "Wonder what is the matter with 'em!" 
 The lad grew weary of this vain repetition, and 
 one day he looked up at me and said: 
 
 "Father, do you know what I'm going to 
 be when I grow up?" 
 
 "Indeed, I don't," I said without much en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 "I'm going to be a turtle." 
 
 "A turtle! What for?" 
 
 "So when I get anything the matter wif me 
 I can pull my head inside an' look around and 
 see what it is, myself." 
 
 But these little fellows give us a great many 
 things that are not jokes. They preach about 
 the clearest little sermons, unconsciously, that 
 may be imagined. My children do, and so do 
 yours if you get the full significance of their 
 
 77 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 meaning. Once my lad came home from the 
 open-air kindergarten he was attending. I 
 rescued him from it afterward. After I had 
 gone once and watched the manly shame with 
 which he toiled through the "Do you know the 
 muf-fin man" drool, I took pity on him and let 
 him dig fish-bait for me. But at that time he 
 was doing time in a kindergarten. He found 
 me at a most disagreeable thing trying to 
 write Christmas humor for Judge, on a 
 hurry-up order, on a hot day. Can you imag- 
 ine a worse job than trying to write stuff about 
 snow and icicles and sleigh-bells when the per- 
 spiration is standing out on your face like 
 sweat? I can't! 
 
 He came in and shoved his head under my 
 arm as if I had nothing else to do but visit with 
 him. And say! Any of you who has a child 
 dependent upon him for the principal share of 
 its guidance and influence, has no other busi- 
 ness half so important as that. No matter 
 what business may be printed after your name 
 
 78 
 
CHILDHOOD'S HUMOR 
 
 in the telephone directory, that isn't your real 
 business, if you have a child. The other busi- 
 ness is your side line and the child is your main 
 job. Bringing up the next generation is the 
 biggest job this generation has . . . Well, he 
 started telling me things about his day at 
 school. He told me all he knew and I told him 
 all I knew. It didn't take either of us long. 
 Then he happened to think of something he be- 
 lieved was more interesting than me, and went 
 to the other thing. I went on trying to write 
 the stuff I had been writing before he came 
 in, but I couldn't. Something the boy had 
 brought into the room something intangible, 
 invisible, but exceedingly real had got be- 
 tween me and that machine. I finally had to 
 take out the sheet of paper I was using and 
 insert a fresh one, and then I watched with 
 surprise while my hands wrote this: 
 
 79 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 AFTER SCHOOL 
 
 When home from school's long day he drifts 
 And to my gaze his fresh face lifts, 
 I read the tale of all the joys 
 And sorrows that are every boy's 
 I knew them once. I feel them yet, 
 Through later living's deeper fret. 
 But still I hold him close, and say 
 "Son, tell me all about your day." 
 
 He tells me whimpering o'er each grief, 
 
 And laughing next in swift relief: 
 
 The big, bad boy who hid his hat ; 
 
 The girl who slipped from where she sat, 
 
 To meet with Teacher's well-earned frown; 
 
 And how the littlest boy fell down! 
 
 I list not that I do not know, 
 
 But only that I love him so. 
 
 When, at life's troublous school day's close, 
 Each world-worn pupil homeward goes, 
 Straight to the Father's eyes we'll raise 
 Our own, prepared for blame or praise. 
 He'll slip an arm around, and say: 
 "Child, tell me all about your day." 
 Not that Our Father does not know, 
 But only that He loves us so. 
 80 
 
CHILDHOOD'S HUMOR 
 
 And we parents have so many funny notions 
 that we don't know are funny because we take 
 ourselves so seriously. We are all charter 
 members, by birth, of the A. O. S. K. Ancient 
 Order of Self-Kidders. We believe solemnly 
 that we are guiding the destinies of our chil- 
 dren. Well, we ought at least to try to be. 
 But when you get right down to the last analy- 
 sis, it is the other way about. What is the most 
 potent earthly influence in keeping parents 
 as nearly straight as they really do keep? 
 The fear of such harm as might come to their 
 children through parental wrong-doing or 
 wrong thinking. So it is, after all, the child 
 who looks after the parents. And the only 
 parents who can't be kept straight by means 
 of their feeling of responsibility for their chil- 
 dren, are the ones who don't want to be kept 
 straight. 
 
 That boy of mine takes care of me, wher- 
 ever I am. He doesn't know it, and won't 
 know it till he has a boy of his own taking care 
 
 81 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 of him. He thinks I am the care-taker. 
 Someday when he learns better, he will under- 
 stand for the first time this bit that I evolved 
 one night at Utica, N. Y., when I left a late 
 train and got to a comfortable but lonely room 
 after midnight: 
 
 WHEN DAD'S AWAY 
 
 Bud, when your dad is milling 'round the map, 
 He's always homesick for a certain chap 
 Whose star-eyed welcome waits for him always. 
 We miss each other most at close of day 
 When darkness settles 'round us, and we yearn 
 Each for the far-off time of my return. 
 
 And always son, don't tell this to a soul ! 
 
 When o'er the rails my train has ceased to roll 
 
 And I am ushered to my hotel room 
 
 With ghastly splendor and its tawdry gloom, 
 
 When on the pillow I have laid my head, 
 
 I say, "Come, Bud, it's time our prayer was said." 
 
 As if you were tucked up beside me there 
 I say the old, familiar bed-time prayer 
 I taught to you, and that we never miss 
 
 82 
 
CHILDHOOD'S HUMOR 
 
 When I'm at home to get my goodnight kiss. 
 Somehow I feel you snuggling to me then, 
 And next I know, the day has come again ! 
 
 The new, fresh viewpoint of life is the stock 
 in trade of children, and they manage to im- 
 part it to others. 
 
 A grammar class in a Missouri school was 
 agonizing over conjunctions one day. All 
 grammar classes are tragic. The teacher said : 
 
 "Some one in the class please give me a sen- 
 tence containing a conjunction, pick out the 
 conjunction and tell what it connects." 
 
 After considerable silence one boy, usually 
 stupid and unanswering, gave this: 
 
 "The goat will butt the boy. Butt is a con- 
 junction, connecting the goat and the boy." 
 
 At Logan, Ohio, a little girl ran excitedly 
 across the street and said to a friendly neigh- 
 bor: 
 
 "Oh, Auntie, we've got the longest cat at 
 our house we ever had!" 
 
 "The longest cat! How long is it?" 
 83 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 "Ever since last summer!" 
 
 It was a little school boy who, when asked 
 to give a sentence containing the word "not- 
 withstanding," wrote 
 
 "The man's trousers were worn out, not with 
 standing." 
 
 THE FOREIGNER 
 
 How can we even pretend to treat of humor 
 and assume to classify it, without speaking of 
 the humor of the foreigner? He brings with 
 him not only an inadequate knowledge of this 
 mysterious and rule-less language of ours, but 
 he also brings a mental twist we natives do not 
 have. 
 
 At Dixon, 111., there lived a German who had 
 a son of whom he was inordinately fond. 
 George was the Baldwin apple of his right eye. 
 One day the glad tidings came that George, 
 who had been away for a good while, was re- 
 turning the next day. The old man was 
 
 84 
 
THE FOREIGNER 
 
 tickled almost to death over the news, and 
 couldn't keep it to himself. Seeing a bosom 
 friend of George's boyhood days he yelled 
 across the street: 
 
 "Goot morgen! Seen Yorge yet?" 
 
 "No. Is he home?" 
 
 "Comin' tomorrow!" 
 
 And here is some especially ancient history 
 that is used because illustrative. 
 
 There was another German this one was a 
 German by marriage. Yes, that is right. 
 He was a German because each of his parents 
 had married a German. I think that makes it 
 all right. Anyway this German by marriage 
 had had a telephone then a new thing placed 
 in his office. He practiced with that machine 
 until he knew far more about it than Edison or 
 Bell had ever even dreamed. But pride goeth 
 before an early fall and a hard winter, as some- 
 body never said before. One day when the old 
 man was busy, his hired man of all work came 
 
 85 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 to the office to tell him there was no feed in the 
 stable for the horse. The old man was right 
 peeved about it, and he said: 
 
 "Vat iss ! V'y you dondt got some feed al- 
 ready yet?" 
 
 "I don't know, boss. Somebody must 'a' 
 been shovelin' it in while I was off. But they 
 ain't none." 
 
 "Huh! Veil, I call up some feedt. You 
 vatch how I done it." 
 
 "No, boss, I have to go around on that 
 street, and I'll take home enough for noon, 
 and order the rest." 
 
 "Nein! Vat I got diss delephone for, huh! 
 I call me up some feedt." 
 
 Taking down the receiver, he said: 
 
 "Hello! Hello! . . . Hel-lol! Are you 
 home? Hello! HEL-lo! O! You're dere, 
 are you? Aindt dot nice! I'm so gladt you 
 vas home de same day vot I call you. All 
 aright. I do der dalking mineself. Giff me 
 von hundert sefenty-fife, der feedt shtore. 
 
 86 
 
THE FOREIGNER 
 
 . . . No, von hundert no, nein, nein! Von 
 hundert undt geben sie meer ein hundert 
 sebentzig giff me der feedt shtore! Vot! 
 Vot's dot? Der delephone gompany dondt 
 gif avay feedt-shtores mit efery call? My, my, 
 vot a shmardt gerrel ! Gif me den I vant do 
 talk mit der feedt shtore. Iss dot allaright 
 huh? ... V-O-T!! Der feedt shtore can't 
 talk, eh ! Goodtness me vat a shmart gerrel it 
 iss ! Veil, I vant to talk mit somebody by der 
 feedt shtore, den. Iss dot allaright? ... So! 
 I'm so gladt you like it. I chust dalk to make 
 you happiness. Veil O, shut up ! ... Oh 
 iss dot der feedt shtore! Oxcuse please! I 
 dink all der time idt vas central. All right. 
 I don't vant der feedt shtore to shut up. I 
 vant it to shtay open vile I got some feedt. 
 Yess aindt it funny! Veil, we get our little 
 choke. I vant you to send me fife bale of 
 shelled oats undt von bushel from hay. . . . 
 No, I don't said it! I say fife bushel from 
 shelled hay undt von bale of oats. . . . No, no, 
 
 87 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 you don't got it yet. I said fife bale mit oats 
 undt von bushel from shelled nein, nein! 
 Efery time I git it right und efery time you 
 got it wrong! You know vat I vandt! . . . 
 Vat iss dot brrrrrrr shtuff! It listens like a 
 voodpecker. Sendt me central, kept your 
 nose oudt ! Sendt dot shtuff before noon time. 
 I've got someting to do but shtand up undt 
 holler at a hole in a box on der vail. I got oder 
 business yet. Gootbye vat! Who's it for? 
 Now you git shmart! It's for my horse." 
 
 "It's a long way to Tipperary," from Ger- 
 many, but one must go there or elsewhere in 
 Ireland if he wants the rarest and strangest of 
 wit and repartee. Here is a story nearly as 
 old as the pyramids. Here are the ghastly de- 
 tails of it : 
 
 An Irishman had lived in the country until 
 he was twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. 
 In fact, he had nearly got his growth. Nearly 
 all of his life he had taken care of horses. Not 
 all of his life, of course. The first three or 
 
 88 
 
THE FOREIGNER 
 
 four years he had been busy at other things. 
 But after that he had nothing to do but take 
 care of horses. Life in the country grew mo- 
 notonous to him, and he decided he knew 
 enough about horses to go to town and get a 
 job in a livery stable and live where things 
 were not so deadly dull. So he threw up his 
 job he wasn't feeling well went to town and 
 inquired at the door of the fir^t livery stable 
 he found, to learn if they needed a hostler. 
 They didn't need one. But the man he in- 
 quired of told him they might need one down 
 at the railroad roundhouse. Now Mike didn't 
 know what on earth they could do with a 
 hostler in a railroad roundhouse, but he wasn't 
 going to give up. He was going to get a 
 hostler job if one was to be had. So he went 
 down to the railroad roundhouse and asked of 
 the first man he saw, if they needed a hostler 
 there. The man looked a little interested 
 and said: 
 
 "Are you a hostler?" 
 89 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 "Sure I'm a hostler. An' a good wan!" 
 
 "Well, go in and see Casey, the foreman. 
 He's right in the office there. He'll tell you." 
 
 Now you would never even suspect it, from 
 the name, but Casey was Irish himself. He 
 had just been promoted to the foremanship, 
 and he was all swollen up over it. He was 
 looking for somebody who didn't know him 
 very well, to impress with his greatness. We 
 can never impress anybody who knows us. 
 That is why some of us ramble around so much. 
 He gave this stranger a looking over that 
 would have rattled a stone image, and said: 
 
 "We-e-ell, phwat do yez wahnt!" 
 
 "I want a job as hostler, sorr." 
 
 "As a hostler, eh! Arre yez a hostler, an- 
 swer me that!" 
 
 "I am, sorr, an' a good wan." 
 
 "Well, go out in the yarrds an' bring in that 
 ingyne." 
 
 Now this was the first inkling Mike had had 
 as to what the duties of a roundhouse hostler 
 
 90 
 
THE FOREIGNER 
 
 were. He didn't know a single thing about 
 a locomotive. But he was too Irish to give 
 up at that stage of the game. He was just 
 Irish enough to depend on his mother wit to 
 get him out of any scrape his father ignorance 
 got him into. So he went out and looked over 
 the front end of the mogul standing about sixty 
 feet away, staring, with its one eye, into the 
 roundhouse, brimful of steam and popping off. 
 In fact, it was so full that they felt it really 
 ought to be run in. He now I've gone and 
 done him an injustice. I said he didn't know 
 anything about a locomotive, but I've got to 
 apologize. He knew one solitary thing about 
 an engine, and that was how to start one. He 
 had fooled around a country station enough 
 to see what lever the man pulled to make it 
 go away from there, but he couldn't keep up 
 till they reached the next station, so he never 
 saw what was pulled to stop it. And when all 
 you know is how to start something you're in 
 a well, you're in an awful fix. So he crawled 
 
 91 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 up into the cab and looked over the business 
 end of that locomotive. He saw all that wil- 
 derness of little dinkusses sticking out there. 
 He would twist one little dinkus and it would 
 fizz and burn his finger. He ran out of fingers 
 to burn long before he ran out of dinkusses 
 to twist. But finally he saw what he'd been 
 hunting for the throttle lever, and he went 
 and took hold of it. He gripped it as hard 
 as he could, he shut his eyes as tight as he 
 could, he braced himself as firmly as he could, 
 pulled as quick as he could, and the locomotive 
 went into the roundhouse like that! He 
 saw that if he didn't do something pretty 
 quickly that he and that locomotive were 
 going through a two-foot brick wall to- 
 gether. He didn't care about the locomotive 
 or the brick wall they weren't his, but he 
 didn't want to hurt himself. * So he got busy 
 and by pure Irish luck and rapid fumbling he 
 managed to grab the reverse lever the John- 
 son bar just in time, and the locomotive 
 
 92 
 
THE FOREIGNER 
 
 backed out like that! He knew now how 
 to make her go back and forth right quick but 
 he didn't know how to make her slow down 
 and stop. And in the meantime and it 
 was a mean time! he kept her going back 
 and forth like the shuttle of a sewing machine. 
 When he finally did get her quieted down, 
 she was standing where he first found her. still 
 popping off. 
 
 Casey came out, madder than a hornet, and 
 yelled : 
 
 "Why in the diwle don't you bring in that 
 in-gyne as I told yez to!" 
 
 "Bring in nawthin'!" said Mike. "I had it 
 in there six times an* yez wouldn't shut th' 
 dure!" 
 
 Mike's typical Irish answer was like a breath 
 of the owld sod and the stirabout pot to Casey, 
 so his anger disappeared. And though he 
 knew Mike wasn't worth fifteen cents a century 
 to the company, he gave him a job. 
 
 About two weeks later though the break- 
 93 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 age account of the roundhouse would make you 
 think it was a year there was a vacancy along 
 the line where, according to law, they had to 
 keep something that looked like a man, at a 
 distance. The human remnant they had kept 
 there was ill one day and a man had to be sent 
 out or a fine be paid. So they picked up Mike 
 and sent him out there on a handcar. Mike 
 was a proud chap ! Working for the company 
 less than a month, and now a station agent! 
 He sat around all forenoon feeling proud, 
 and all afternoon feeling foolish. Nothing 
 stopped there and he wasn't getting to sass the 
 public like a regular station agent. It grav- 
 eled him. Along toward night, after he had 
 been feeling like a cipher with the rim rubbed 
 out about as long as he could stand it, he looked 
 at his dollar watch and saw he had only half an 
 hour more to be agent, and not an official or 
 officious act to his credit for the entire day! 
 It was unbearable. Just then he heard the 
 fast express coming in the distance. It should 
 
 94 
 
THE FOREIGNER 
 
 have been along hours before. It was hitting 
 the high spots making up every possible split 
 second, with a clear right of way, for the next 
 junction where an important connection was 
 to be made. But that didn't bother Mike for a 
 single minute. It was his chance, and he took 
 it like a little man. Dusk was coming on, so 
 he rushed into his shack, lighted his red lan- 
 tern, then rushed back out and stood between 
 the rails. The engineer of this lightning ex- 
 press couldn't see this man with the red lan- 
 tern until he rounded a high bluff at a curve 
 less than a quarter of a mile away. Then he 
 saw it and was scared stiff. Could he stop her 
 in time? He could try! He used all the 
 sand in the box. He threw in the reverse, the 
 emergency everything he could to stop her 
 quickly. The train bounced and buck-jumped 
 and skated and sent up sparks from the driv- 
 ers and blazes from the journals for fifty yards 
 before she stopped right at that Irishman's 
 toes. The engineer leaped out and ran for- 
 
 95 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 ward, white of face and trembling of legs and 
 said: 
 
 "In heaven's name, what's wrong?" 
 
 "Yez is la-ate," said Mike shrewdly. 
 "Phwat's ka-apin' yez?" 
 
 And can we let the dear old English alone 
 when we talk of foreign humor? I can't resist 
 the temptation to tell you just one or two. I 
 told that last story of the Irishman stopping 
 a train to a typical Englishman, and he said, 
 in patient surprise, "Well, me good man, but 
 wasn't the bloomin' blighter still further 
 del'ying the train?" 
 
 And a few years ago an English girl came 
 to this country to study the American joke. 
 She had heard of the trouble her countrymen 
 had had with it, and she was going to learn to 
 take one apart and put it together again and 
 see wherein the mystery lay. So she started 
 in this was at the big chautauqua at Chau- 
 tauqua Lake by having everyone who sprung 
 a jest in her presence explain it to her! 
 
 96 
 
THE FOREIGNER 
 
 Wasn't that hilarious ! Wasn't that the cheer- 
 ful chore! If there is anything hurts worse 
 than explaining a joke, I want always to be 
 spared that worse pain. I don't think I could 
 live through it. But that's what she did, and 
 it wasn't long until nobody would tell a joke 
 without putting out sentinels while the story 
 was told, and taking to the woods afterward. 
 They were afraid the girl might come along 
 for her diagram. Yet toward the end of the 
 summer somebody sprung a joke right where 
 that girl could hear it! Awful thing to do. 
 Awful joke, for that matter. About the old- 
 est joke there is. It was that silly old conun- 
 drum which asks "'How do you make a Maltese 
 cross?" And the answer is, "You pull its 
 tail." Somebody on one side of the table 
 asked it and some other bright person answered 
 it with "You pull its tail." Several of those 
 present smiled. Not that they were amused. 
 No chance. They simply wished to show re- 
 spect for old age. But the English girl didn't 
 
 97 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 smile a bit. She looked like the second plume 
 on a hearse. Finally she lifted her eyes from 
 her plate and said : 
 
 "Well, of cawse it's because I'm English and 
 all that, but r'ally I cawn't see any similarity 
 between a Maltese cross and a pullet's tail." 
 
 THE PUZZLED PORKERS 
 
 You have noted what an effective element 
 surprise is, in humor. The little story I am 
 going to tell you now has that element. To 
 those of you who read this incident when I first 
 promulgated it years ago, or who have heard 
 others tell it, or heard the phonograph record 
 Ed Whitney made of it, with credit to myself, 
 the element of surprise still remains surprise 
 that I should tell it at all. But it best illus- 
 trates that class of humor, that's all: 
 
 One time a friend of mine was going through 
 the woods in the part of Arkansas where they 
 let their hogs run in the woods. That wasn't 
 the way my friend came to be loose in those 
 
 98 
 
THE PUZZLED PORKERS 
 
 woods. He was no hog. While traveling 
 along his attention was attracted by the strange 
 behavior of a covey of razorbacks that he had 
 flushed from the brush. 
 
 The razorback, as you may know, is a pe- 
 culiar animal, related to the hog but more 
 closely related to the antelope. It is perfectly 
 proper to eat razorback meat on fast days, for 
 he is the fastest animal known. He never 
 looks fat, no matter how fleshy he is. He al- 
 ways looks like a grey-hound that had starved 
 to death. The only way you can tell a fat one 
 from a lean one is to pick it up by the ears, 
 which is its normal balancing point, the snout 
 and the tonneau of said animal being of exactly 
 the same length. If the front end goes down, 
 he is lean. If it goes up, he is ready for the 
 butcher. 
 
 Well, this friend of mine noticed that these 
 razorbacks hollow-ground, and self -stropping 
 razor-backs were acting peculiarly. They 
 would stick their heads up in the air, curl their 
 
 99 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 tails so tight they couldn't get their hind feet 
 to the ground, listen excitedly for a few min- 
 utes, then run violently in one direction for a 
 hundred yards or so, stop, letting ears and 
 tail become negligee again, and repeat the 
 hopeful stuff. 
 
 The man watched them in blank amazement 
 until he began to feel kind of funny himself. 
 He was afraid this was catching, so he crossed 
 his fingers and hurried on. 
 
 A quarter of a mile further, he came upon an 
 old man sitting on an inverted nail-keg beside 
 a cabin door, combing his whiskers with his 
 fingers. 
 
 "Morning!" said my friend. 
 
 "Mornin'," whispered the old man. 
 
 "You live here?" 
 
 "Reckon I do," came the whisper. 
 
 "Lived here all your life?" 
 
 "Not yit." 
 
 "Are those your hogs back there in the 
 woods?" 
 
 100 
 
NONSENSE 
 
 "Reckon they air," again whispered the old 
 gentleman. 
 
 "Well, what on earth makes 'em act that 
 way? They stick their heads up in the air, run 
 about a hundred yards, turn and run some 
 other way, and keep that up all the time. 
 They're running their fool selves to death. 
 What's the matter with 'em?" 
 
 "Y'see, stranger," rasped the old man in 
 his bronchial whisper, "lately th' acorns has 
 been a-gittin' skaise, an' I been a-feedin' 'em 
 some cawn. Las' week I los' my voice an' tuk 
 t' callin' 'em by poundin' on a tree with a stick, 
 an' now them danged woodpeckers has got' em 
 crazy." 
 
 NONSENSE 
 
 Then there is the humor of wait a minute: 
 I want to tell you folks something, in confi- 
 dence. Shh! I wasn't always the fat, chubby 
 thing you see me now. I was once almost 
 slender. The first steady job I ever had was 
 
 101 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 that of understudy to the living skeleton in a 
 sideshow the ossified man. But I saw what 
 a hard life he lived and I gave it up. I heard 
 afterward that he died hard. And just to 
 show you what silly things love makes people 
 do, how reason goes out the window when love 
 comes in the front door, the ossified man was 
 married to the fat lady! You never saw such 
 a looking pair. They looked like a drum and 
 a fife when they went out together. She was so 
 embonpoint, as we say in Paris, that when her 
 husband wasn't around to help dress her, she 
 had to waddle into the animal tent to let the 
 sacred cow hook her up the back! But that 
 was all before I went into the furniture busi- 
 ness making one-night stands under a bureau. 
 I didn't have as much to live on then as I've had 
 since. I used to have to live on twenty cents a 
 day. Maybe it might be interesting to you 
 to know how this was done. You never know 
 how prices are going up. I bought a pint of 
 milk for breakfast and a loaf of bread for din- 
 
 102 
 
NONSENSE 
 
 ner, and ate them for supper. I ran down ter- 
 ribly. I got so I couldn't eat anything solid 
 except bread, meat, vegetables and fruit, and 
 I couldn't drink anything except liquids. I 
 went day after day without a wink of sleep. 
 If it hadn't been for the ten hours I got every 
 night, I guess I'd have died. 
 
 But I got so thin living along this way that 
 the landlady of the rooming house where I 
 stayed say, talk about your landladies! 
 There was a landlady de luxe. You know 
 some women never sweep under the beds at 
 all well, she swept everything under the beds. 
 Well, that landlady got worried about me and 
 sent for a young doctor friend of hers who had 
 no practice and owed her money. He put that 
 thing in my mouth, under my tongue you 
 know, that fountain pen or whatever it is they 
 prime you with when they are going to try to 
 pump money out of you that all-day sucker 
 with no taffy on it he left that there a good 
 while, and when he took it out, I said: 
 
 103 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 "Doc, what were you doing then?" 
 "I was taking your temperature." 
 "Put it right back!" I cried. "That's the 
 only temperature I've got." 
 
 He didn't like the looks of things very much, 
 so he sent for another young doctor friend of 
 his in con-sul-ta-tion. Now let me give you a 
 word of advice when a doctor comes and 
 looks at your pulse and feels your tongue and 
 looks sad about it and then sends for another 
 doctor "in con-sul-ta-tion," don't let that big 
 word scare you. That doesn't mean your 
 case is serious it means theirs is. They 
 both need the money. So he sent for this 
 other doctor in consultation, and they decided 
 I ought to go to a hospital they knew about 
 that needed money also, so they sent me there. 
 The floorwalker of the hospital thought of a 
 friend of his he used to be a butcher, but lost 
 his job and is a surgeon now who also needed 
 the money. This surgeon, this great cut-up, 
 came and went all up and down my solar sys- 
 
 104 
 
A POULTRY HINT 
 
 tern with his fingers and knuckles and played 
 several selections. I said, "Doc, what are you 
 doing?" He said, "I'm kneading your stom- 
 ach/' I said, "Well, stop it. I might need it 
 myself some time." Doc went on and played 
 two or three more little things and ran the 
 scales a few times, then said sternly : 
 
 "Haven't you got appendicitis?" 
 
 "Search me," I said. 
 
 Now he took that slang of mine seriously. 
 I didn't mean what he meant at all! I've al- 
 ways wondered if that operation was success- 
 ful. But it couldn't have been, for I got well. 
 And his collector told me about six months 
 later when I carelessly let him find me in, that 
 the doctor said he had not got a thing out of 
 me. 
 
 A POULTRY HINT 
 
 Now I don't like to end an evening of fri- 
 volity without feeling that I have done at least 
 something scientific and educational. Some of 
 
 105 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 you may have the information I am about to 
 give you ; if so, your pardon, please. 
 
 It has to do with the poultry business. 
 
 I was the youngest boy on the farm, and you 
 know what a fine job lot of jobs I had. Every 
 job that nobody else would touch with a ten- 
 foot pole was mine. I didn't have to apply for 
 it in writing or undergo a civil-service exami- 
 nation, I simply got it. If I didn't accept it, 
 I got something else. Among my fine collec- 
 tion of jobs, one was to be dry nurse to the 
 little chickens. When it would rain in the 
 night and the coops were flooded it was my 
 business to get up and go out in the wet grass 
 and bring in the little soppy powder-puffs and 
 wrap them in an old flannel petticoat and put 
 them under the cook-stove to dry out. And 
 do you know, all this time that I was striving in 
 my weak, boyish manner, to be a good mother 
 to these chickens, I never once had the remotest 
 idea whether those little things were going to 
 grow up regular voters or suffragettes ! 
 
 106 
 
HUMOR'S PURPOSE 
 
 Why, when I think how easily I might have 
 known all the time, I blush for shame at my 
 stupidity and ignorance. 
 
 Here's the way to tell: You take the little 
 chicken that is under suspicion and put it up on 
 a chair, a bureau, a fish-bowl stand or anything 
 like that even the piano if you insist, and put 
 some bread crumbs in front of it, in plain sight. 
 Then watch ! You are about to find out : 
 
 If he eats, it's a rooster, and if she eats, it's 
 a pullet ! Never fails ! 
 
 (Rameses the Second is said to have died 
 laughing at that one. ) 
 
 Now that, my friends, is the humor of sheer, 
 unadulterated, unvarnished nonsense. "A lit- 
 tle nonsense now and then" the accent is on 
 the "little" and the "now and then." A steady 
 diet of it would drive one to insanity, 
 
 HUMOR'S PURPOSE 
 
 Yet there is a purpose, far higher than the 
 mere tickle, in humor. A healthy laugh is a 
 
 107 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 blessing. But humor should have a more last- 
 ing effect. It should teach us optimism. Op- 
 timism is the opposite of pessimism. Pessi- 
 mism well, it is the least sane of all the human 
 characteristics. Let me tell you a story that 
 will give you an undying picture of the pessi- 
 mist, an unfading image of him. It is not a 
 pretty story. One cannot tell pretty stories 
 about things as inherently and incurably ugly 
 as pessimism. 
 
 One time a man was sitting in a basement 
 saloon or rathskeller, where he had no business 
 being, where, pretty soon, nobody can be. He 
 had been drinking copiously for days, without 
 improving his appearance in the least. He 
 had been treated well and often. His face was 
 stubbly, his clothes were mussed and dirty, his 
 under lip sagged down like that of a motherless 
 colt. His eyes were bleary and bloodshot, his 
 hat was pulled down on one side, and he was in 
 general a loathsome object. Sitting in his 
 chair on his collar button with his feet sprawled 
 
 108 
 
HUMOR'S PURPOSE 
 
 out and snoring, he excited disgust even in the 
 bar flies who watched him. After awhile a 
 wicked look came into the eyes of one of the 
 loafers. He went to some free lunch displayed 
 on a corner of the bar, and picked up a brick 
 of limburger cheese. Those who have smelled 
 limburger cheese in the full flush of its man- 
 hood, and have also smelled attar of roses, 
 never afterward get the two confused in their 
 minds. They are quite different. There is no 
 resemblance unless you are color-blind in the 
 nose. The loafer scraped the tinfoil from one 
 face of the cheese briquette and approached the 
 sleeping beauty. He smeared a lot of the lim- 
 burger on the stiffest bristles right under the 
 soak's nose. ... A change came over the 
 spirit of his drunken dream. He stirred. He 
 got one eye partly open, fought away at the 
 invisible foe, but it stuck closer than a brother. 
 He asked, in dismay, of the circumambient and 
 tainted air, " Ain't this awful?" 
 
 Nobody answered. . . , The drunken man 
 109 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 arose partly to his feet and again inquired, 
 "Ain't it awful!" Still no answer. Then he 
 grew disgusted with such an unsympathetic 
 bunch so lost to all sense of community wel- 
 fare, and wandered forth into the night, guard- 
 ing himself against the door that threatened to 
 hit him as he went out. After awhile he stag- 
 gered back, fell over the sill, leaned against the 
 bar, the tears running down his face, and 
 sobbed : 
 
 " Ain't it jest awful I" 
 
 "Ain't what awful?" asked somebody. 
 
 "The whole world stinks!" 
 
 There is your pessimist, true to the life! 
 It is not a cartoon or a caricature it is a life- 
 size photograph. He thinks the world is all 
 wrong when, if he would look after his own 
 part of the thing and do his own duty and keep 
 himself decent, the world wouldn't seem half so 
 odorous to him or to those he meets. 
 
 And optimism that is a word we don't un- 
 derstand well enough. It means merely hope- 
 
 110 
 
HUMOR'S PURPOSE 
 
 fulness and pluck and patience. There is an 
 optimism that shines through the gentle tear 
 as well as that which has laughter in it. Here is 
 a memory of my own childhood in the country 
 it has optimism in it, though no boisterous 
 hilarity : 
 
 WAITING 
 
 On summer Saturday's long afternoon 
 
 I used to climb, barefoot, one thronelike knoll, 
 Soliloquizing: "Father's coming soon." 
 
 The gray pike rippled eastward like a scroll 
 And vanished in the summit of a hill 
 
 One world-long mile away ; around me played 
 The shifting sunbeams feather-like still, 
 
 Tiptoeing from each ever-lengthening shade. 
 
 I knew that when they crept into my ken 
 
 Above the hillbrink, I should know the span 
 Dust-scuffling bay, head-tossing gray ; and then 
 
 The strong familiar figure of the man. 
 I'd know him know him! Leaping with their joy 
 
 My swift feet from my cairn would take me down 
 A care-free, zephyr-hearted country boy, 
 
 To welcome home my father from the town. 
 Ill 
 
A SAMPLE CASE OF HUMOR 
 
 Once on a time he went away again; 
 
 Perhaps the sun shone, but we could not see. 
 I have not climbed that little knoll since then, 
 
 For Father is not coming home to me. 
 Somewhere he waits upon a sun-kissed hill 
 
 And softly says : "My boy is coming soon." 
 He'll know me from afar -I know he will! 
 
 When, world-tired, I trudge home, some afternoon. 
 
 Now I have told you of humor, but I have 
 not laboriously clung to the laugh-coaxing 
 emotions. I have rambled now and then into 
 other and healthful emotional fields, and you 
 have gone with me. I have made no effort to 
 tell you a set of "new stories" there are no 
 such animals. I have clung to rudimentary 
 anecdotes that contain the chief principles of 
 humor. If I have given to humor a mental 
 aspect as well as its customary emotional one; 
 if I have in the least degree helped you to find 
 more humor about you and to create humor to 
 while away lonely moments; and if I have 
 helped cultivate in you the capacity for throw- 
 ing off sorrow when further communion with 
 112 
 
HUMOR'S PURPOSE 
 
 it would make you not only unhappy yourself 
 but render miserable your associates which is 
 black injustice I am happy. And you will 
 be happier. 
 
 113 
 
If you have enjoyed this book you 
 would also be pleased with Gil- 
 lilan's three other famous books 
 described on the following pages. 
 
BY STRICKLAND GILLILAN 
 
 SUNSHINE AND AWKWARDNESS 
 
 Strickland Gillilan, America's most popular hu- 
 morist, has put into this book the sparkling wit and 
 humor which have delighted millions of people who 
 have heard him lecture. This is just the book for a 
 gift to any friend and the book you would want for 
 yourself. 
 
 Packed with genuine laughs. Washington Star. 
 
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 Christian Advocate. 
 
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 It is refreshing to get hold of such a book. Read it 
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 This book is a veritable godsend and its publication a 
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 A dollar invested for this book might save a hundred 
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 It solves the problem of what to get for all purchasers 
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 Pittsburgh Leader. 
 
 Neatly bound in cloth. $1.00 
 Forbes & Company, Publishers, Chicago 
 
BY STRICKLAND GILL1LAN 
 
 INCLUDING YOU AND ME 
 
 This delightful book contains over one hundred 
 joyous poems of the kind that everybody likes to 
 read. Gillilan is one of America's leading humorists 
 and his verses appeal to the heart with their quaint 
 humor and cheerful, hopeful philosophy. 
 
 The sort of a book that appeals to anybody. Buffalo 
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 You will chase away many blue devils if you keep this 
 book near you. Pittsburgh Gazette Times. 
 
 All cheerful and full of the joy of living and the 
 warmth of human brotherhood. Duluth Herald. 
 
 Every poem is a gem and the collection a sparkling 
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 The verses appeal to the heart with their quaint humor 
 and cheerful, hopeful philosophy. They express the sen- 
 timents, the hopes and aspirations of the common man. 
 Indianapolis Star. 
 
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 pure air fondles the soul. He brings delight and hope 
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 Handsomely bound in cloth. $1.00 
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 INCLUDING FINNIGIN 
 
 A book containing eighty poems by the popular 
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 something to hold the thought or touch the heart on 
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 and tears. 
 
 It is just as funny as any verses written. Chicago 
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 Worth reading over and over. Humanity held up to 
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 There is occasion for a smile, a tear or a big laugh 
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 Gillilan is one of nature's biggest inventions. He is 
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 Attractive cover. Cloth. $1.00 
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YB 73324 
 
 M183576 
 
 
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