ENGLISH SENSE OF HUMOUR. It is Remarkably Slow, but They Get There Eventually.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 248, 21 March 1888, Page 4

ENGLISH SENSE OF HUMOUR. It is Remarkably Slow, but They Get There Eventually.

Mr Chadncey Dki'ew was talking 1 awhile ago to some New York friends, and the conversation turned upon the density of Englishmen in the matter of humour. Said Mr Pepew, laughing over some anecdote that had been related : ' 4 Some years ago I had to make an after-dinner speech at the country home of a genial and wealthy Englishman, who lived a hundred miles or so from London. I began by apologising for my lack of preparation, on the ground that the man who usually wrote my extemporaneous speeches had failed to put in an appearance. Nobody smiled. I tried again, and that attempt was no more successful than the first. In fact, every effoi t made to interest and convulse the gentlemen gathered about that banquet table fieeuied to plunge them into deeper and more profound gloom, and I linally sat down, convinced that I was a ghastly and greweome failure. I went over to Paris, and travelled about the continent for several week?. Then I returned to London and was walking up Regent-street, when I met the Englishman who had been my entertainer in the country. He came up to me with a burst of laughter. As he grasped my hands in his the tears almost ran down his cheeks, he was laughing so hard. He exclaimed : 'My boy, that was a capital joke of yours about your extemporaneous speech at my banquet. Ha, ha, ha ! 1 came all the way up town to have a laugh with you about it' And he did laugh. Finally I said to him : ' That was very kind of you. You must have come up with the slow express.' He looked at me with an expression of deep amazement, and I didn't see him for a week. At the end of that time he came up to me again, laughing all over, and roared : 'By jove, Depew, that was a witty thing you said to me the other day. The slow express ! Ha, ha, ha!' "And that," continued Mr Depew, "goes to show that Englishmen really appreciate humour, though they are apt. to be in the rear of the procession."