not to subside into mere conversation. It seems
rude, when a story-teller has at last reached the triumphant ending and
climax of the mule from Arkansas, it seems impolite, to follow it up by
saying, "I see that Germany refuses to pay the indemnity." It can't be
done. Either the mule or the indemnity--one can't have both.

The English, I say, have not developed the American custom of the funny
story as a form of social intercourse. But I do not mean to say that
they are sinless in this respect. As I see it, they hand round in
general conversation something nearly as bad in the form of what one may
call the literal anecdote or personal experience. By this I refer to the
habit of narrating some silly little event that has actually happened to
them or in their sight, which they designate as "screamingly funny," and
which was perhaps very funny when it happened but which is not the least
funny in the telling. The American funny story is imaginary. It never
happened. Somebody presumably once made it up. It is fiction. Thus
there must once have been some great palpitating brain, some glowing
imagination, which invented the story of the man who was put off at
Buffalo. But the English "screamingly funny" story is not imaginary. It
really did happen. It is an actual personal experience. In short, it is
not fiction but history.

I think--if one may say it with all respect--that in English society
girls and women are especially prone to narrate these personal
experiences as contributions to general merriment rather than the men.
The English girl has a sort of traditional idea of being amusing; the
English man cares less about it. He prefers facts to fancy every time,
and as a rule is free from that desire to pose as a humourist
which haunts the American mind. So it comes about that most of the
"screamingly funny" stories are told in English society by the women.
Thus the counterpart of "put me off at Buffalo" done into English
would be something like this: "We were so amused the other night in
the sleeping-car going to Buffalo. There was the most amusing old negro
making the beds, a perfect scream, you know, and he kept insisting that
if we wanted to get up at Buffalo we must all go to bed at nine o'clock.
He positively wouldn't let us sit up--I mean to say it was killing the
way he wanted to put us to bed. We all roared!"

Please note that roar at the end of the English personal anecdote. It is
the sign that indicates that the