"
Whereupon the soldier dispossessed himself of his burden, and stood
looking down upon it in great perplexity. At length he said:
"It is true, sir, just as you have said." Then after a pause he added,
"BUT HE TOLD ME IT WAS HIS LEG!!!!!"
Here the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of
thunderous horse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time
through his gasping and shriekings and suffocatings.
It takes only a minute and a half to tell that in its comic-story form;
and isn't worth the telling, after all. Put into the humorous-story
form it takes ten minutes, and is about the funniest thing I have
ever listened to--as James Whitcomb Riley tells it.
He tells it in the character of a dull-witted old farmer who has
just heard it for the first time, thinks it is unspeakably funny,
and is trying to repeat it to a neighbor. But he can't remember it;
so he gets all mixed up and wanders helplessly round and round,
putting in tedious details that don't belong in the tale and only
retard it; taking them out conscientiously and putting in others
that are just as useless; making minor mistakes now and then
and stopping to correct them and explain how he came to make them;
remembering things which he forgot to put in in their proper place
and going back to put them in there; stopping his narrative a good
while in order to try to recall the name of the soldier that was hurt,
and finally remembering that the soldier's name was not mentioned,
and remarking placidly that the name is of no real importance, anyway
--better, of course, if one knew it, but not essential, after all
--and so on, and so on, and so on.
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