paraphrased thus:

[1] English Composition, page 165.

Have as many cards or slips of paper as you have points or gags.
Write only one point or gag on one card or slip of paper. On the
first card write "Introduction," and always keep that card first
in your hand. Then take up a card and read the point or gag on
it as following the introduction, the second card as the second
point or gag, and so on until you have arranged your monologue in
an effective routine.

Then try another arrangement. Let us say the tenth joke in the
first routine reads better as the first joke. All right, place
it in your new arrangement right after the introduction. Perhaps
the fourteenth point or gag fits in well after the tenth gag--fine,
make that fourteenth gag the second gag; and so on through your
cards until you have arranged a new routine.

Your first arrangement can invariably be improved--maybe even your
seventh arrangement can be made better; very good, by shuffiing
the cards you may make as many arrangements as you wish and
eventually arrive at the ideal routine. And by keeping a memorandum
of preceding arrangements you can always turn back to the older
routine--if that appears the best after all other arrangements
have been tried.

But what is really the ideal arrangement of a monologue? How may
you know which routine is really the best? Frankly, you cannot
_know_ until it has been tried out on an audience many, many