or two about Mr. Leacock. In the first place, by vocation he is a
Professor of Political Economy, and he practises humour--frenzied
fiction instead of frenzied finance--by way of recreation. There
he differs a good deal from me, who have to study the products of
humour for my living, and by way of recreation read Mr. Leacock on
political economy.

Further, Mr. Leacock is all-British, being English by birth and
Canadian by residence, I mention this for two reasons: firstly,
because England and the Empire are very proud to claim him for
their own, and, secondly, because I do not wish his nationality to
be confused with that of his neighbours on the other side. For
English and American humourists have not always seen eye to eye.
When we fail to appreciate their humour they say we are too dull
and effete to understand it: and when they do not appreciate ours
they say we haven't got any.

Now Mr. Leacock's humour is British by heredity; but he has caught
something of the spirit of American humour by force of association.
This puts him in a similar position to that in which I found myself
once when I took the liberty of swimming across a rather large loch
in Scotland. After climbing into the boat I was in the act of drying
myself when I was accosted by the proprietor of the hotel adjacent
to the shore. "You have no business to be bathing here," he shouted.
"I'm not," I said; "I'm bathing on the other side." In the same
way, if anyone on either side of the water is unintelligent enough
to criticise Mr. Leacock's humour, he can always say it comes from
the other side. But the truth is that his humour contains all that
is best in the humour of both hemispheres.