Jokes For All Occasions | Page 6

come alone, and the greatest of all possible

misfortune is usually followed by a greater."
And there is the hospitable invitation of the Irishman:
"Sir, if you ever come within a mile of my house, I hope you will stop
there." And it was an Irishman who remarked to another concerning a
third: "You are thin, and I am thin, but he's as thin as the two of us put
together." Also, it was an Irishman who, on being overtaken by a storm,
remarked to his friend: "Sure, we'll get under a tree, and whin it's wet
through, faith, we'll get under another."
Naturally, we Americans have our own bulls a plenty, and they are by
no means all derived from our Irish stock. Yet, that same Irish stock
contributes largely and very snappily to our fund of humor. For the
matter of that, the composite character of our population multiplies the
varying phases of our fun. We draw for laughter on all the almost
countless racial elements that form our citizenry. And the whole
content of our wit and humor is made vital by the spirit of youth. The
newness of our land and nation gives zest to the pursuit of mirth. We
ape the old, but fashion its semblance to suit our livelier fancy. We
moralize in our jesting like the Turk, but are likely to veil the maxim
under the motley of a Yiddish dialect. Our humor may be as meditative
as the German at its best, but with a grotesque flavoring all our own.
Thus, the widow, in plaintive reminiscence concerning the dear
departed, said musingly:
"If John hadn't blowed into the muzzle of his gun, I guess he'd 'a' got
plenty of squirrels. It was such a good day for them!"
And in the moralizing vein, this:
The little girl had been very naughty. She was bidden by her mother to
make an addition to the accustomed bedtime prayer--a request that God
would make her a better girl. So, the dear child prayed: "And, O God,
please make Nellie a good little girl." And then, with pious resignation,
she added:
"Nevertheless, O God, Thy will, not mine, be done."

At times, we are as cynical as the French. So of the husband, who
confessed that at first after his marriage he doted on his bride to such an
extent that he wanted to eat her--later, he was sorry that he hadn't.
Our sophistication is such that this sort of thing amuses us, and, it is
produced only too abundantly. Luckily, in contrast to it, we have no
lack of that harmless jesting which is more typically English. For
example, the kindly old lady in the elevator questioned the attendant
brightly:
"Don't you get awful tired, sonny?"
"Yes, mum," the boy in uniform admitted.
"What makes you so tired, sonny? Is it the going up?'
"No, mum."
"Is it the going down?"
"No, mum."
"Then what is it makes you so tired, sonny?"
"It's the questions, mum."
And this of the little boy, who was asked by his mother as to what he
would like to give his cousin for a birthday present.
"I know," was the reply, "but I ain't big enough."
Many of our humorists have maintained a constant geniality in their
humor, even in the treatment of distressing themes. For example, Josh
Billings made the announcement that one hornet, if it was feeling well,
could break up a whole camp meeting. Bill Nye, Artemas Ward and
many another American writer have given in profusion of amiable
sillinesses to make the nation laugh. It was one of these that told how a
drafted man sought exemption because he was a negro, a minister, over
age, a British subject, and an habitual drunkard.

The most distinctive flavor in American humor is that of the grotesque.
It is characteristic in Mark Twain's best work, and it is characteristic of
most of those others who have won fame as purveyors of laughter. The
American tourist brags of his own:
"Talk of Vesuve--huh! Niag'll put her out in three minutes." That
polished writer, Irving, did not hesitate to declare that Uncle Sam
believed the earth tipped when he went West. In the archives of our
government is a state paper wherein President Lincoln referred to
Mississippi gunboats with draught so light that they would float
wherever the ground was a little damp. Typically American in its
grotesquerie was the assertion of a rural humorist who asserted that the
hogs thereabout were so thin they had to have a knot tied in their tails
to prevent them from crawling through the chinks in the fence.
Ward displayed the like quality amusingly in his remark to the
conductor of a tediously slow-moving accommodation train in the
South. From his seat in the solitary