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
Methodist minister, or a commercial traveller, or an old darky, or
two Irishmen, or any of the stock characters of the American
repertory. On another occasion I dined with a bishop of the Church. I
expected that when the soup came he would say, "There was an old
darky--" After which I should have had to listen with rapt attention,
and, when he had finished, without any pause, rejoin, "There were a
couple of Irishmen once--" and so on. But the bishop never said a
word of the sort.
I can further, for the sake of my fellow-men in Canada and the
United States who may think of going to England, vouchsafe the
following facts: If you meet a director of the Bank of England, he
does not say: "I am very glad to meet you.
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