some lesser person tries to repeat it afterwards, there is nothing
left but the final point. The rest is weariness.

As a consequence most story-tellers are driven to telling stories
that depend on the point or "nub" and not on the narration. The
storyteller gathers these up till he is equipped with a sort of
little repertory of fun by which he hopes to surround himself with
social charm. In America especially (by which I mean here the United
States and Canada, but not Mexico) we suffer from the story-telling
habit. As far as I am able to judge, English society is not pervaded
and damaged by the story-telling habit as much as is society in the
United States and Canada. On our side of the Atlantic story-telling
at dinners and on every other social occasion has become a curse. In
every phase of social and intellectual life one is haunted by the
funny anecdote. Any one who has ever attended a Canadian or American
banquet will recall the solemn way in which the chairman rises and
says: "Gentlemen, it is to me a very great pleasure and a very great
honour to preside at this annual dinner. There was an old darky
once--" and so forth. When he concludes he says, "I will now call
upon the Rev. Dr. Stooge, Head of the Provincial University, Haroe
English Any Sense of Humour? to propose the toast 'Our Dominion.'"
Dr. Stooge rises amid great applause and with great solemnity begins,
"There were once two Irishmen--" and so on to the end. But in London,
England, it is apparently not so. Not long ago I had the pleasure of
meeting at dinner a member of the Government. I fully anticipated
that as a member of the Government he would be expected to tell a
funny story about an old darky, just as he would on our side of the
water. In fact, I should have supposed that he could hardly get into
the Government unless he did tell a funny story of some sort. But all
through dinner the Cabinet Minister never said a word about either a