Card-Index Humor

THE toastmaster made a motion with his napkin that resembled a conventionalized dusting of the moustache, and rose in throat-clearing impressiveness. He rumpled the napkin, placed it with utmost precision on the edge of the table, and moved a disinterested wineglass an inch and a quarter to the right. The others pushed back their chairs, plashed in their coffee, and assumed the speech-hearing attitude, which combines expectancy with a resolve not to be surprised at any cost.

'Gentlemen,’ said the toastmaster, assuming a meditative manner by canting his head to one side, ‘Gentlemen,

I am in a peculiar position to-night; I may say, almost an awkward position. It reminds me of the story of the Irishman. Pat was coming home late one evening, a trifle unsteadily, when he came upon a policeman, also from the “auld country.” “Pat,” said Mike —’

Why ‘Pat’ and ‘Mike’? queried the subconscious mind of Mullins, who had come primarily for sustenance and not at all for speeches.

Because, my dear Mullins, in an Irish story, it is always Pat and Mike. When Pat is not making Mike ridiculous, Mike is turning the tables on Pat.

It must be so. Imagine, if you can, —

‘Two Irishmen were working on a scaffolding on the thirtieth story of a sky-scraper. “ George,"said Edward—’

No; an Irishman, we learn from the comic papers, is never named George, or Edward, or Augustus, or Frederick. A humorous Irishman is always true to type in the matter of name.

But why, Mullins persists, this deplorable state of affairs? Why is every humorously inclined Scotchman named Sandy, and each precociously apt child, Johnny? It is because that great wave of system which has filed everything from receipts for freight bills to recipes for fricassees has card-indexed humor. Behind the tab marked ‘Irish’ in the long pack come a myriad of tales in which Mike and Pat alone take part.

After all, it is of value. Take the simple individual humorist, the man who was caught red-handed one day making a bright remark, and who is now, poor soul, in honor bound to himself and the world to keep up the average. It might have been a verbal slip at the outset; but his reputation was born therein. Unless he makes the most of each opportunity that presents itself, it will die as quickly.

Then too, the scoring ability of most men is low. For every goal that goes over the cross-bars, there are a dozen tries that are fumbled, a dozen that are got off too late and fall low, and a dozen that are blocked by a speedier player.

For these reasons conservation is necessary. To-day’s clever remark will be clever to-morrow provided the situation is the same and the audience different. Therefore file the clever remark. In time, if you keep this up, you will have enough repartee carefully compiled to enable you to cope with any situation that arises. You will earn by means of your mental index the all-tobe-desired name of ‘wit,’ and ‘fun of the party,’who is ‘always getting off a good one.’

But, asks Mullins, what if you never make the clever remarks at the beginning, and so cannot catalogue them?

Be not discouraged, my dear Mullins. In the brilliant theatre of sparkling humorists you shall look down on the others from a box-seat. Having nothing of your own to cherish, you are unhampered; you are free to collect the cachinnations of any one. Review the comic papers, attend the banquets, and file in your mind the episodes of Pat and Sandy and I key which have the largest percentage of laugh and the smallest percentage of words. You will soon have anecdotes that will ‘hit off’ whole epochs, or careers, or evenings. From a sought-after dinner guest you will rise to be postprandial illuminator. If you climb to the highest rung of your glistening ladder you may never have to pay for a dinner.

There are unlimited uses for this card-index humor. Consider, if you please, the newspapers and reviewmagazines. There is such simplicity in its adaptation. General Wilkins, hitherto unknown for humor, wit, or cleverness, is suddenly appointed chief of the Street-Cleaning Department. Pictures of him at his desk surprised by the photographers; attended by his loyal wife; surrounded by all his children at once; seated in a hammock at his summer place at Spitzburg-on-the-Hudson, — all these flood the periodicals. And then we find the excavations of the humorous-anecdote reporter. He erases ‘Pat’ and inserts ‘General Wilkins,’ adds a new line or two, and you have an intimate slice of the chief’s life, in such a way as, —

‘General Wilkins, recently appointed chief of the Street-Cleaning Department, is well-known for his keen sense of humor. While he was in Boston during his famous campaign of 1905, there occurred an incident that illustrates his quickness of wit. It appears that he was motoring rapidly down Beacon Street when he was stopped by a policeman, who ’ — And the story taken from the card index is grafted in here adroitly, so that the joint does not show.

Or, if the newspaper reporter wishes variety, we find the general blossoming where Mike once bloomed, and we have, —

‘General Wilkins, the new chief of the Street-Cleaning Department, enjoys a good story, even at his own expense. The following anecdote, which he frequently tells on himself, is going the rounds of Washington society. It was late one evening and the general was on his way home from a hard day at the Treasury Department, when a man who seemed to be in somewhat of a hurry ran against him’ — And here the card index takes it up.

The tale of Mike and Pat is good so long as it hangs together, and so long as the story-teller’s law holds true that two men laughing will make more noise than ten men remembering. Any joke in the index, if occasionally revarnished and regilded, refashioned for the moment and perhaps reworded, will last three generations easily, and in that time make the reputation for repartee of six prominent men.

After all, questions Mullins, is it humor? Perhaps not, Mullins. Humor cannot be defined. But it can be confined. In these days of efficiency it is efficient, and in these days of conservation it is conserving. The drama has been made lasting photographically, music has been preserved scientifically; so why not secure mentally the humor of one’s life for the length of it?

— The toastmaster rose. ‘Gentlemen, he said, as he moved the wineglass an inch and a quarter to the left, 'Mr. Cornhill’s remarks about where this country is going, remind me of the story of the colored deacon. He was returning home late one night from a sick brother when he came across a member of his congregation who was concealing under his coat what looked suspiciously like a plump chicken. “Rastus, whar is yo’ gwine”_-'

And while the toastmaster continued in that exotic, Anglo-African dialect which comic colored men are taught at infancy, the subconscious mind of Mullins, who had come for sustenance and not for speeches, realized that while Cornhill, the leading postprandial bank president in the country, had been sidesplitting his hearers, the toastmaster had been carefully and successfully searching through a long, and rather dog-eared, mental card index.