Jokes For All Occasions | Page 3

typical Irish bulls.
Among these were accounts of the "Safety-first" enthusiast who
determined never to enter the water until he had learned to swim; of the
horse-owner, training his nag to live without eating, who was
successful in reducing the feed to a straw a day, and was about to cut
this off when the animal spoiled the test by dying untimely; of the
fellow who posed before a looking glass with his eyes closed, to learn
how he looked when asleep; of the inquisitive person who held a crow
captive in order to test for himself whether it would live two centuries;
of the man who demanded to know from an acquaintance met in the
street whether it was he or his twin brother who had just been buried.
Another Greek jest that has enjoyed a vogue throughout the world at
large, and will doubtless survive even prohibition, was the utterance of
Diogenes, when he was asked as to what sort of wine he preferred. His
reply was: "That of other people."
Again, we may find numerous duplicates of contemporary stories of
our own in the collection over which generations of Turks have laughed,
the tales of Nasir Eddin. In reference to these, it may be noted that
Turkish wit and humor are usually distinguished by a moralizing
quality. When a man came to Nasir Eddin for the loan of a rope, the
request was refused with the excuse that Nasir's only piece had been
used to tie up flour. "But it is impossible to tie up flour with a rope,"
was the protest. Nasir Eddin answered: "I can tie up anything with a
rope when I do not wish to lend it."
When another would have borrowed his ass, Nasir replied that he had
already loaned the animal. Thereupon, the honest creature brayed from
the stable. "But the ass is there," the visitor cried indignantly. "I hear
it!" Nasir Eddin retorted indignantly: "What! Would you take the word
of an ass instead of mine?"
In considering the racial characteristics of humor, we should pay tribute

to the Spanish in the person of Cervantes, for Don Quixote is a mine of
drollery. But the bulk of the humor among all the Latin races is of a
sort that our more prudish standards cannot approve. On the other hand,
German humor often displays a characteristic spirit of investigation.
Thus, the little boy watching the pupils of a girls' school promenading
two by two, graded according to age, with the youngest first and the
oldest last, inquired of his mother: "Mama, why is it that the girls' legs
grow shorter as they grow older?" In the way of wit, an excellent
illustration is afforded by Heine, who on receiving a book from its
author wrote in acknowledgment of the gift: "I shall lose no time in
reading it."
The French are admirable in both wit and humor, and the humor is
usually kindly, though the shafts of wit are often barbed. I remember a
humorous picture of a big man shaking a huge trombone in the face of
a tiny canary in its cage, while he roars in anger: "That's it! Just as I
was about, with the velvety tones of my instrument, to imitate the
twittering of little birds in the forest, you have to interrupt with your
infernal din!" The caustic quality of French wit is illustrated
plenteously by Voltaire. There is food for meditation in his utterance:
"Nothing is so disagreeable as to be obscurely hanged." He it was, too,
who sneered at England for having sixty religions and only one gravy.
To an adversary in argument who quoted the minor prophet Habakkuk,
he retorted contemptuously: "A person with a name like that is capable
of saying anything."
But French wit is by no means always of the cutting sort. Its more
amiable aspect is shown by the declaration of Brillat Savarin to the
effect that a dinner without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only
one eye. Often the wit is merely the measure of absurdity, as when a
courtier in speaking of a fat friend said: "I found him sitting all around
the table by himself." And there is a ridiculous story of the
impecunious and notorious Marquis de Favières who visited a Parisian
named Barnard, and announced himself as follows:
"Monsieur, I am about to astonish you greatly. I am the Marquis de
Favières. I do not know you, but I come to you to borrow five-hundred

luis."
Barnard answered with equal explicitness:
"Monsieur, I am going to astonish you much more. I know you, and I
am going to lend them to you."
The amiable malice, to use a paradoxical phrase, which is often
characteristic of French tales, is capitally displayed in the following:
The