SPOILT THE JOKE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 253, 24 October 1936, Page 6 (Supplement)

SPOILT THE JOKE.

THE ENGLISHMAN'S «BULL." ) Senator Depew, the American, told the following story as illustrating the inability of the Englishman to see' a joke:— There was once a New English lawyer by the name of John Strange, who wrote his own epitaph, which he asked his wife to put on his tombstone after his death: "Here lies the body of an honest lawyer," to which his wife objected, saying, "But they won't know your name, John!" "Oh, yes, they will," he said. •'•Everybody who sees the epitaph will say, 'Here lies the body of an honest lawyer? Well, that's Strange.'" The senator told this story at the club when an Englishman was present. Months after the senator visited London, and was entertained at'one of the clubs by the same Englishman. At the conclusion of the dinner the Englishman rose and said: "My friends, we have with us one of America's great anvl well- | known raconteurs, and. if he will pardon I me, I would like to' tell tho story that I I heard him tell in New York":— I There was once a lawyer by the name of John Strange who wrote his own epitaph, "Here lies the body of an lionest lawyer." And when his wife objected that nobody...would know who was buried there, <the lawyer exclaimed, "Oli, ves, they willf Everybody who sees this will exclaim, 'What! an honest lawyer? Well, that's extraordinary.'" The epitaph '-.vas on one Strange, who was said to be an honest lawyer, and it ended, "That's Strange." The Englishman, who could not see that the point of the story lay . in the two w.ords "That's Strange,'" substituted ' "extraordinary" for "Strange," and the joke ceased to bo a joke.