ing serious. I must
apologise.

I was about to say, when I wandered from the point, that
there is another form of humour which I am also quite
unable to appreciate. This is that particular form of
story which may be called, _par excellence_, the English
Anecdote. It always deals with persons of rank and birth,
and, except for the exalted nature of the subject itself,
is, as far as I can see, absolutely pointless.

This is the kind of thing that I mean.

"His Grace the Fourth Duke of Marlborough was noted for
the open-handed hospitality which reigned at Blenheim,
the family seat, during his regime. One day on going in
to luncheon it was discovered that there were thirty
guests present, whereas the table only held covers for
twenty-one. 'Oh, well,' said the Duke, not a whit abashed,
'some of us will have to eat standing up.' Everybody, of
course, roared with laughter."

My only wonder is that they didn't kill themselves with
it. A mere roar doesn't seem enough to do justice to such
a story as this.

The Duke of Wellington has been made the storm-centre of
three generations of wit of this sort. In fact the typical
Duke of Wellington story has been reduced to a thin
skeleton such as this:

"A young subaltern once met the Duke of Wellington coming
out of Westminster Abbey. 'Good morning, your Grace,' he
said, 'rather a wet morning.' 'Yes' said the Duke, with
a very rigid bow, 'but it was a damn sight wetter, sir,
on the morning of Waterloo.' The young subaltern, rightly
rebuked, hung his head."

Nor is it only the English who sin in regard to anecdotes.

One can indeed make the sweeping assertion that the
telling of stories as a mode of amusing others ought to
be kept within strict limits. Few people realise how
extremely difficult it is to tell a story so as to
reproduce the real fun of it--to "get it over" as the
actors say. The mere "facts" of a story seldom make it
funny. It needs the right words, with every word in its
proper place. Here and there, perhaps once in a hundred
times, a story turns up which needs no telling. The humour
of it turns so completely on a sudden twist or incongruity
in the _denouement_ of it that no narrator, however
clumsy, can altogether fumble it.

Take, for example, this well-known instance--a story
which, in one form or other, everybody has heard.

"George Grossmith, the famous comedian, was once badly
run down and went to consult a doctor. It happened that
the doctor, t