W. Jacobs, of Lorimer's Letters of a Self-made Merchant
to His Son, of Mrs. Anne Warner's Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs.
Lathrop, and of some of Stockton's delightful stories. My greatest
triumph was in inducing him to forget for a while his intense aversion
to slang and to listen to the shrewd and genial philosophy of George
Ade.
The work of the official humorist to J. P. was rendered particularly
arduous because he carried into the field of humor, absolutely unabated,
his passion for facts. To most people a large part of humor consists in
the manner of presentation, in the trick of phrase, in the texture of
the narrative. To J. P. those things meant little or nothing; what
amused him was the situation disclosed, the inherent humor of the action
or thought.
As I have said, it was not difficult to read humorous material to J. P.
when he deliberately resigned himself to it. What was exceedingly
difficult was to rise to those frequent occasions when, tired, vexed and
out of sorts, he suddenly interrupted your summary of a magazine article
by saying: "Stop! Stop! For God's sake! I've got a frightful headache.
Now tell me some humorous stories--make me laugh."
In order to meet these urgent and embarrassing demands I ransacked the
periodical press of England and America.
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