THE SCOTCHMAN - He was a vurra fierce grizzly bear, ye ken; and he
rushed at me from behind a jugged rock.
THE NEGRO - Mistah, you means a jagged rock, don't you?
THE SCOTCHMAN - Nay, nay, laddie - a jugged rock.
THE NEGRO - Whut's dat you say? Whut - whut is a jugged rock?
THE SCOTCHMAN (forgetting his accent) - Why, a rock with a jug on
it, old chap. (A stage wait to let that soak into them in all its
full strength.) A rock with a jug on it would be a jugged rock,
wouldn't it - eh?
The pause had been sufficient - they had it now. And from all parts
of the house a whoop of unrestrained joy went up.
Witnessing such spectacles as this, the American observer naturally
begins to think that the English in mass cannot see a joke that
is the least bit subtle. Nevertheless, however, and to the contrary
notwithstanding - as Colonel Bill Sterritt, of Texas, used to
say - England has produced the greatest natural humorists in the
world and some of the greatest comedians, and for a great many
years has supported the greatest comic paper printed in the English
language, and that is Punch. Also, at an informal Saturday-night
dinner in a well-known London club I heard as much spontaneous
repartee from the company at large, and as much quiet humor from
the chairman, as I ever heard in one evening anywhere; but if you
went into that club on a weekday you might suppose somebody was
dead and laid out there, and that everybody about the premises
had gone into deep mourning for the deceased.
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