Artemus Ward used that trick a good deal; then when the belated audience
presently caught the joke he would look up with innocent surprise,
as if wondering what they had found to laugh at. Dan Setchell
used it before him, Nye and Riley and others use it today.
But the teller of the comic story does not slur the nub;
he shouts it at you--every time. And when he prints it,
in England, France, Germany, and Italy, he italicizes it,
puts some whopping exclamation-points after it, and sometimes
explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very depressing,
and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a better life.
Let me set down an instance of the comic method, using an anecdote
which has been popular all over the world for twelve or fifteen
hundred years. The teller tells it in this way:
THE WOUNDED SOLDIER
In the course of a certain battle a soldier whose leg had been shot off
appealed to another soldier who was hurrying by to carry him to the rear,
informing him at the same time of the loss which he had sustained;
whereupon the generous son of Mars, shouldering the unfortunate,
proceeded to carry out his desire. The bullets and cannon-balls
were flying in all directions, and presently one of the latter
took the wounded man's head off--without, however, his deliverer
being aware of it. In no long time he was hailed by an officer,
who said:
"Where are you going with that carcass?"
"To the rear, sir--he's lost his leg!"
"His leg, forsooth?" responded the astonished officer; "you mean
his head, you booby.
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