re asking if he broke a leg.

The fundamentals of wit and humor are the same throughout all the
various tribes of earth, throughout all the various ages of history. The
causes of amusement are essentially the same everywhere and always, and
only the setting changes according to time and place. But racial
characteristics establish preferences for certain aspects of fun-making,
and such preferences serve to some extent in differentiating the written
humor of the world along the lines of nationality. Nevertheless, it is a
fact that the really amusing story has an almost universal appeal. I
have seen in an American country newspaper a town correspondent's
humorous effort in which he gave Si Perkins's explanation of being in
jail. And that explanation ran on all fours with a Chinese story ages
and ages old. The local correspondent did not plagiarize from the
Chinaman: merely, the humorous bent of the two was identical. In the
ancient Oriental tale, a man who wore the thief's collar as a punishment
was questioned by an acquaintance concerning the cause of his plight.

"Why, it was just nothing at all," the convict explained easily. "I was
strolling along the edge of the canal, when I happened to catch sight of
a bit of old rope. Of course, I knew that old piece of rope was of no
use to anyone, and so I just picked it up, and took it home with me."

"But I don't understand," the acquaintance exclaimed. "Why should they
punish you so severely for a little thing like that? I don't understand
it."

"I don't understand it, either," the convict declared, "unless, maybe,
it was because there was an ox at the other end of the rope."

The universality of humor is excellently illustrated in Greek
literature, where is to be found many a joke at which we are laughing
to-day, as others have laughed through the centuries. Half a thousand
years before the Christian era, a platonic philosopher at Alexandria, by
name Hierocles, grouped twenty-one jests in a volume under the title,
"Asteia." Some of them are still current with us as 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 cl