Idle Ideas in 1905 | Page 5

who say that they have read--his books, feels always like
a man taken for the first time to be shown to his future wife's relations.
They are very pleasant. They try to put him at his ease. But he knows
instinctively they are disappointed with him. I remember, when a very
young man, attending a party at which a famous American humorist
was the chief guest. I was standing close behind a lady who was talking
to her husband.
"He doesn't look a bit funny," said the lady.
"Great Scott!" answered her husband. "How did you expect him to look?
Did you think he would have a red nose and a patch over one eye?"
"Oh, well, he might look funnier than that, anyhow," retorted the lady,
highly dissatisfied. "It isn't worth coming for."
We all know the story of the hostess who, leaning across the table
during the dessert, requested of the funny man that he would kindly say
something amusing soon, because the dear children were waiting to go
to bed. Children, I suppose, have no use for funny people who don't
choose to be funny. I once invited a friend down to my house for a
Saturday to Monday. He is an entertaining man, and before he came I
dilated on his powers of humour--somewhat foolishly perhaps-- in the
presence of a certain youthful person who resides with me, and who
listens when she oughtn't to, and never when she ought. He happened
not to be in a humorous mood that evening. My young relation, after
dinner, climbed upon my knee. For quite five minutes she sat silent.

Then she whispered:
"Has he said anything funny?"
"Hush. No, not yet; don't be silly."
Five minutes later: "Was that funny?"
"No, of course not."
"Why not?"
"Because--can't you hear? We are talking about Old Age Pensions."
"What's that?"
"Oh, it's--oh, never mind now. It isn't a subject on which one can be
funny."
"Then what's he want to talk about it for?"
She waited for another quarter of an hour. Then, evidently bored, and
much to my relief, suggested herself that she might as well go to bed.
She ran to me the next morning in the garden with an air of triumph.
"He said something so funny last night," she told me.
"Oh, what was it?" I inquired. It seemed to me I must have missed it.
"Well, I can't exactly 'member it," she explained, "not just at the
moment. But it was so funny. I dreamed it, you know."
For folks not Lions, but closely related to Lions, introductions must be
trying ordeals. You tell them that for years you have been yearning to
meet them. You assure them, in a voice trembling with emotion, that
this is indeed a privilege. You go on to add that when a boy -
At this point they have to interrupt you to explain that they are not the
Mr. So-and-So, but only his cousin or his grandfather; and all you can
think of to say is: "Oh, I'm so sorry."
I had a nephew who was once the amateur long-distance bicycle
champion. I have him still, but he is stouter and has come down to a
motor car. In sporting circles I was always introduced as "Shorland's
Uncle." Close-cropped young men would gaze at me with rapture; and
then inquire: "And do you do anything yourself, Mr. Jerome?"
But my case was not so bad as that of a friend of mine, a doctor. He
married a leading actress, and was known ever afterwards as "Miss B-
's husband."
At public dinners, where one takes one's seat for the evening next to
someone that one possibly has never met before, and is never likely to
meet again, conversation is difficult and dangerous. I remember talking
to a lady at a Vagabond Club dinner. She asked me during the

entree--with a light laugh, as I afterwards recalled--what I thought,
candidly, of the last book of a certain celebrated authoress. I told her,
and a coldness sprang up between us. She happened to be the certain
celebrated authoress; she had changed her place at the last moment so
as to avoid sitting next to another lady novelist, whom she hated.
One has to shift oneself, sometimes, on these occasions. A newspaper
man came up to me last Ninth of November at the Mansion House.
"Would you mind changing seats with me?" he asked. "It's a bit
awkward. They've put me next to my first wife."
I had a troubled evening myself once long ago. I accompanied a young
widow lady to a musical At Home, given by a lady who had more
acquaintances than she knew. We met the butler at the top of the stairs.
My friend spoke first:
"Say Mrs.