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. If any member of
that club had dared then to crack a joke they would have expelled
him--as soon as they got over the shock of the bounder's confounded
cheek. Saturday night? Yes. Monday afternoon? Never! And there
you are!
Speaking of Punch reminds me that we were in London when Punch,
after giving the matter due consideration for a period of years,
came out with a colored jacket on him. If the Prime Minister had
done a Highland fling in costume at high noon in Oxford Circus it
could not have created more excitement than Punch created by coming
out with a colored cover. Yet, to an American's understanding,
the change was not so revolutionary and radical as all that.
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