Genre Humor. Page - 20

ladys Maud cried, because she had taken a sudden dislike to the village idiot; and Mike settled himself in the corner and opened a magazine.

He was alone in the carriage. Bob, who had been spending the last week of the holidays with an aunt further down the line, was to board the train at East Wobsley, and the brothers were to make a state entry into Wrykyn together. Meanwhile, Mike was left to his milk chocolate, his magazines, and his reflections.

The latter were not numerous, nor profound. He was excited. He had been petitioning the home authorities for the past year to be allowed to leave his private school and go to Wrykyn, and now the thing had come about. He wondered what sort of a house Wain's was, and whether they had any chance of the cricket cup. According to Bob they had no earthly; but then Bob only recognised one house, Donaldson's. He wondered if Bob would get his first eleven cap this year, and if he himself were likely to do anything at cricket. Marjory had faithfully reported e

d has been living there these fourteen years past.'

'A Polish nobleman?' I asked.

'Nay, we breed no such men in Poland,' he answered.

'A Frenchman, then?' cried Duroc.

'They say that he came from France.'

'And with red hair?'

'As red as a fox.'

'Yes, yes, it is my man,' cried my companion, quivering all over in his excitement. 'It is the hand of Providence which has led me here. Who can say that there is not justice in this world? Come, Monsieur Gerard, for I must see the men safely quartered before I can attend to this private matter.'

He spurred on his horse, and ten minutes later we were at the door of the inn of Arensdorf, where his men were to find their quarters for the night.

Well, all this was no affair of mine, and I could not imagine what the meaning of it might be. Rossel was still far off, but I determined to ride on for a few hours and take my chance of some wayside barn in which I could find shelter for Rataplan and myself. I had mou

occasion for us to be afraid of an angel, and he liked us, anyway. He went on chatting as simply and unaffectedly as ever; and while he talked he made a crowd of little men and women the size of your finger, and they went diligently to work and cleared and leveled off a space a couple of yards square in the grass and began to build a cunning little castle in it, the women mixing the mortar and carrying it up the scaffoldings in pails on their heads, just as our work-women have always done, and the men laying the courses of masonry--five hundred of these toy people swarming briskly about and working diligently and wiping the sweat off their faces as natural as life. In the absorbing interest of watching those five hundred little people make the castle grow step by step and course by course, and take shape and symmetry, that feeling and awe soon passed away and we were quite comfortable and at home again. We asked if we might make some people, and he said yes, and told Seppi to make some cannon for the walls, a

THE COMIC IN GENERAL--THE COMIC ELEMENT IN FORMS AND MOVEMENTS--EXPANSIVE FORCE OF THE COMIC.

What does laughter mean? What is the basal element in the laughable?What common ground can we find between the grimace of a merry-andrew, a play upon words, an equivocal situation in a burlesque anda scene of high comedy? What method of distillation will yield usinvariably the same essence from which so many different productsborrow either their obtrusive odour or their delicate perfume? Thegreatest of thinkers, from Aristotle downwards, have

Barny O'Reirdon the Navigator by Samuel Lover
Haddad-Ben-Ahab the Traveller by John Galt
Bluebeard's Ghost by Wm. M. Thackeray
The Picnic Party by Horace Smith
Father Tom and the Pope by Samuel Ferguson
Johnny Darbyshire by William Howitt
The Gridiron by Samuel Lover
The Box Tunnel by Charles Reade

not the case with the stout fellow that at that moment entered from the common room beyond. He caught sight of me and let out a yell that could have, and in fact did, summon everyone in the place. The sounds of singing stopped as others rushed to see the source of his consternation.

"Let this be a lesson to you not to waylay innocent travelers!" I shouted, scooping up the pies, one in each hand. I urged Hysteria onward, but no doubt feeling the warm air exiting the window, she was loath to move. The orphan fixed that by slapping her on the backside, her fragile ego notwithstanding. She jumped and shot around to the front of the inn just as the gang of toughs from inside came out the front door. They were just in time to watch us race off into the darkness with two warm and steamy pies.

Chapter Four

: Wherein we make decisions about our supper.

When we were not two hundred yards down the road, I let Hysteria drop to a trot, for in trut

in charge to thee? 70

Dro. E. To me, sir? why, you gave no gold to me.

Ant. S. Come on, sir knave, have done your foolishness, And tell me how thou hast disposed thy charge.

Dro. E. My charge was but to fetch you from the mart Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner: 75 My mistress and her sister stays for you.

Ant. S. Now, as I am a Christian, answer me, In what safe place you have bestow'd my money; Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours, That stands on tricks when I am undisposed: 80 Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?

Dro. E. I have some marks of yours upon my pate, Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders; But not a thousand marks between you both. If I should pay your worship those again, 85 Perchance you will not bear them patiently.

Ant. S. Thy mistress' marks? what mistress, slave, hast thou?

Dro. E. Your worship's wife, my mistress at the Phoenix; She that doth

sh, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.

I have reckoned upon a medium, that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, encreaseth to 28 pounds.

I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.

Infant's flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in March, and a little before and after; for we are told by a grave author, an eminent French physician, that fish being a prolifick dyet, there are more children born in Roman Catholick countries about nine months after Lent, the markets will be more glutted than usual, because the number of Popish infants, is at least three to one in this kingdom, and therefore it will have one other collateral advantage, by lessening the number of Papists among us.

I have already computed the

kly to do any good. A school would be his death. When he comes tobe a little stronger, who knows what a year or two's Latin may do forhim?

HARDCASTLE. Latin for him! A cat and fiddle. No, no; the alehouseand the stable are the only schools he'll ever go to.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. Well, we must not snub the poor boy now, for Ibelieve we shan't have him long among us. Anybody that looks in hisface may see he's consumptive.

HARDCASTLE. Ay, if growing too fat be one of the symptoms.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. He coughs sometimes.

HARDCASTLE. Yes, when his liquor goes the wrong way.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. I'm actually afraid of his lungs.

HARDCASTLE. And truly so am I; for he sometimes whoops like aspeaking trumpet--(Tony hallooing behind the scenes)--O, there hegoes--a very consumptive figure, truly.

Enter TONY, crossing the stage.

MRS. HARDCASTLE. Tony, where are you going, my charmer? Won't yougive papa and I a little of your company, lovee?

TONY. I'm in haste, mother; I cannot

ncy?"

"Leave Beaugency to me, gentle duke; I will have it in two hours, and at no cost of blood."

"It is true, Excellency. You will but need to deliver this news there and receive the surrender."

"Yes. And I will be with you at Meung with the dawn, fetching the Constable and his fifteen hundred; and when Talbot knows that Beaugency has fallen it will have an effect upon him."

"By the mass, yes!" cried La Hire. "He will join his Meung garrison to his army and break for Paris. Then we shall have our bridge force with us again, along with our Beaugency watchers, and be stronger for our great day's work by four-and-twenty hundred able soldiers, as was here promised within the hour. Verily this Englishman is doing our errands for us and saving us much blood and trouble. Orders, Excellency--give us orders!"

"They are simple. Let the men rest three hours longer. At one o'clock the advance-guard will march, under our command, with Pothon of Saintrailles as second; the second divisio