Whereupon the soldier dispossessed himself of his burden, and stood
looking down upon it in great perplexity. At length he said:

"It is true, sir, just as you have said." Then after a pause he added,
"But he TOLD me IT WAS HIS LEG! ! ! ! !"


Here the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of thunderous
horse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time through his gaspings
and shriekings and suffocatings.

It takes only a minute and a half to tell that in its comic-story form;
and isn't worth the telling, after all. Put into the humorous-story form
it takes ten minutes, and is about the funniest thing I have ever
listened to--as James Whitcomb Riley tells it.

He tells it in the character of a dull-witted old farmer who has just
heard it for the first time, thinks it is unspeakably funny, and is
trying to repeat it to a neighbor. But he can't remember it; so he gets
all mixed up and wanders helplessly round and round, putting in tedious
details that don't belong in the tale and only retard it; taking them out
conscientiously and putting in others that are just as useless; making
minor mistakes now and then and stopping to correct them and explain how
he came to make them; remembering things which he forgot to put in in
their proper place and going back to put them in there; stopping his
narrative a good while in order to try to recall the name of the soldier
that was hurt, and finally remembering that the soldier's name was not
mentioned, and remarking placidly that the name is of no real importance,
anyway--better, of course, if one knew it, but not essential, after all
--and so on, and so on, and so on.