On the Rest of Humour

Otago Witness, Issue 4074, 12 April 1932, Page 5

On the Rest of Humour

(Copyright.—For the Otago Witness.)

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By

STEPHEN LEACOCK.

“They’ve invited me to ateend this darned banquet next month,” said Robinson, “ they want me to propose the toast to “ Our Country.” I suppose it's easy enough, eh?” He spoke with an affectation of indifference, but I knew what lie was feeling underneath. “ I suppose,” he went on, “ all I have to do is to get up and jolly them along for fifteen minutes, eh?” “That’s all,” I answered, “just jolly them along.” ¥ ¥ ¥ I met him again a week later. “ 1 hey’ve got me down for this banquet on the 12th,” he said. “They want me to propose “ Our Countrv.” “Do they?” I said. “ Yes, and I was thinking that perhaps a good idea might be to say something about the history of the country, don’t you think?” So then I knew that Robinson had got to the stage of looking up the encyclopedia.

“ A good idea,” I answered. “ I thought,” he continued, “ that I’d trace it down from early times and show the way it has come on. How do you think that would go?” “ I think,” I said, “ that that would go as far as you like.”

“ Don’t you think,” asked Robinson, a few days later, “that it might he a good idea to work in Christopher Columbus —something about Columbus having been the first to dine in this continent, something about his dining a la carte, or a i.a chart—you see, ‘ carte ’ and ‘chart’—if I can just work it in. Don’t you think?” “I think,” I told him, •‘that if you can only work it in, it will make a tremendous hit.”

j) That afternoon I saw nim in the Public Library taking out the “ Life of Christopher Columbus.”

I happened to meet Robinson a few days later out in the country on a Sunday walk. “ They’ve got me down to speak at this big dinner on the 12th,” he said. “ Oh, yes.”

“ I don’t suppose there’s any difficulty about doing a thing of that sort, is there? ”

“ None whatever,” I answered. From the look of his face, I could realise the stage of anxiety he had reached.

“I didn’t know,” I said, “ that you were in the habit of walking out here? ”

“I don’t,” he answered, “not usually. But I thought with this speech to make next Tuesday week, I’d take long walks.so as to be able to think over a few ideas. Don’t you think that’s a good plan? ” “ Oh, yes,” I said, “ fine 1 How far do you walk each time?” “ Oh, about ten to twelve miles.” “ Yes,” I said, “ that ought to do it,”

I watched him disappear a little later along the side of a meadow, seeing neither the dandelions nor the daisies, but with his mind riveted on Christopher

Columbus, and murmuring in his fancy, “Mr Chairman and ladies and gentlemen ”

Such shipwreck does the prospect of a “pleasant evening” make of the human mind.

“ I was thinking,” he said on the following Saturday, “ that a fellow might get off something about the future*"of the countrv, eh ? ” An excellent idea 1 ” I assured him, ¥ ¥ -Y-

“You weren’t at church,” I said to Robinson, “ on Sunday ” “ No,” he answered, “ I have been working on this blinked speech for this blanked banquet; I’ve got to follow right after the blinkety-blank toastmaster. Gad! I’ve got to think up some blanked-blanked-blinkety thing or other to say between now and Tuesday.” ¥ ¥ ¥ On Monday Robinson was not at his office. 1 understood that he was working

at his speech. I saw the banquet announced in the newspapers that day and noticed that there were to be fifteen speakers.

On Tuesday morning I called up Robinson on the ’phone. “No,” he said, “I’m not coming down town. They got me stung to speak at this cursed banquet to-night on “ Our Country.” Gad, I don’t know what to say. I’ve had no time to study it up.” “Too bad,” I said. “ Yes, and what I think I’ll do is, I’ll write the blasted thing out. It’s more certain that way, isn’t it?” “ Dead certain.”

That evening I called Robinson up again about 7.30 to wish him success. His voice sounded muffled.

“ I’m not going,” he said, “ I’ve eaught a sort of a nasty chill. I think it’s perhaps a touch of bronchitis (here he coughed), or else it’s just a touch of lumbago or sciatica; in fact, I’m in pretty poor shape. I guess I’d better no go out to-night. My wife says I’d be crazy to go.” “What about your speech?” “ I sent it over,” he answered, “ Billy Jones is going toq-ead it to the boys.”

Next day I naturally supposed that the episode of Robinson and his speech was all over.

It soon appeared that it was only beginning.

“ Great heavens,” he said to me when we met that morning, “did you see the morning paper?’ “ The Chinese massacres? ” I asked. . “ No, my speech, and Good Gad — Billy Jones! The paper hardly put in any of it, anyhow, and left out all the best parts, and what they did put in Billy Jones got all bashed up.” “Bashed up? ” “ Yes, look at this, where I said ‘This country has a great destiny in front of it,’ Billy Jones put in, ‘ this country has a

great destitution in front of it.’ How the could he have ”

I didn’t stop to hear any more. ¥ ¥ Robinson is still talking, even after the lapse of months, of what he would have, said if he had been able to go, of other ideas that came to him later, of jokes that he thought would have gone down well, of gags that he would have had half a mind to put in. And he really thinks—or tries to—that, his wife wouldn’t let him go to the banquet.