AMONG the HUMORISTS
and
AFTER DINNER SPEAKERS

OLIVER HERFORD

AMONG THE HUMORISTS
AND AFTER-DINNER
SPEAKERS

A NEW COLLECTION
OF HUMOROUS STORIES
AND ANECDOTES
SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY
WILLIAM PATTEN
Editor of American Short Story Classics,
Foreign Short Story Classics, etc.

VOL. I

P. F. COLLIER & SON
NEW YORK

Copyright 1909
By P. F. Collier & Son

PARTIAL LIST OF THE NAMES OF STORY-TELLERS IN THIS VOLUME

PREFACE

THE collection of these humorous paragraphs has extended over a number of years. Even a small beginning became a source of such entertainment that the collection grew and grew, always without any thought of publication.

The man who can not laugh has yet to be found. Therein lies that immediate appeal to a common ground which the sense of humor gives, and it has been a conspicuous characteristic of those who look to the public for appreciation and support. Lord Palmerston and Abraham Lincoln were two notable examples of men for whom sympathy quickened through their ready wit, and no political speaker drives home his arguments half so well as he who can introduce a witty illustration. The joke has ever been a potent factor in combating oppression and corruption, in ridiculing shams. It has embalmed some reputations, and has blasted others. It is the champion of the weak against the strong, and has often illuminated for us, as in a flash, a glimpse of character or custom that would otherwise have been lost to the world.

There is only one similar collection of which I am aware, the “Jest Book” by Mark Lemon, who was for twenty-nine years the editor of “Punch.” Alas that there should be fashions in jokes as well as in hats, for much of his book that we know must have been humorous reading to his contemporaries, leaves us, of the present generation in America, indifferent.

I shall be glad if some of my readers are minded to do a graceful act and send me, in return, some paragraphs to add to my collection.

I wish to take this opportunity to thank the following publications for the paragraphs borrowed from their columns:

Evening Sun, Lippincott’s, Pittsburg Dispatch, San Francisco News-Letter, Ladies’ Home Journal, Washington Star, Mail and Express, Youth’s Companion, Life, Good Housekeeping, Argonaut, Buffalo Commercial, Tit-Bits, Punch, The Tattler, Harper’s Weekly, Harper’s Monthly, Democratic Telegram, Cleveland Plaindealer, Harvard Lampoon, Judge, Philadelphia Ledger, Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, Boston Herald, Kansas City Star, Washington Post, Success, Atchison Globe, New York Times, Woman’s Home Companion, London Mail, Louisville Courier-Journal, Rochester Post-Express, New York Tribune, New York Observer, Chicago Daily News, Pittsburg Post, Pittsburg Observer, Philadelphia Public Ledger, New York World, Pick-me-up, Harper’s Bazar, The Green Bag, Tacoma Ledger, Pittsburg Dispatch, The Wasp, Cornell Widow, Washington Post, Kansas City Independent, Short Stories.

W. P.

AMONG THE HUMORISTS AND AFTER-DINNER SPEAKERS

THERE is a delicious flavor about this story of a Virginia lady, married to a man who, though uniformly unsuccessful in his hunting trips, boastingly spoke of his “killings.”

One day, returning from a trip, with the usual accompaniment of an empty bag, it occurred to him that his wife would make fun of him if he returned without even one proof of his oft-boasted skill. So he purchased a brace of partridges to deceive his trusting spouse. As he threw them on the table in front of her, he observed: “Well, my dear, you see I am not so awkward with the gun after all.”

“Dick,” replied the wife, turning from the birds with a grimace, after a brief examination, “you were