show how great the tension has been.

Nine times out of ten the people have heard the story before; and
ten times out of nine the teller damages it in the telling. But
his hearers are grateful to him for having saved them from the
appalling mantle of silence and introspection which had fallen upon
the table. For the trouble is that when once two or three stories
have been told it seems to be a point of honour not to subside into
mere conversation. It seems rude, when a story-teller has at last
reached the triumphant ending and climax of the mule from Arkansas,
it seems impolite, to follow it up by saying, "I see that Germany
refuses to pay the indemnity." It can't be done. Either the mule
or the indemnity--one can't have both.

The English, I say, have not developed the American custom of the
funny story as a form of social intercourse. But I do not mean to
say that they are sinless in this respect. As I see it, they hand
round in general conversation something nearly as bad in the form
of what one may call the literal anecdote or personal experience.
By this I refer to the habit of narrating some silly little event
that has actually happened to them or in their sight, which they
designate as "screamingly funny," and which was perhaps very funny
when it happened but which is not the least funny in the telling.
The American funny story is imaginary. It never happened. Somebody
presumably once made it up. It is fiction. Thus there must once
have been some great palpitating brain, some glowing imagination,
which invented the story of the man who was put off at Buffalo.
But the English "screamingly funny" story is not imaginary. It
really did happen. It is an actual personal experience. In short,
it is not fiction but history.