anything clumsy, heavy, unwieldy, or irksome to handle: there is no fun in it. He wants the laughter of enjoyment of triumph. This laughter of triumph runs through all the stages of life. When we triumph over some difficulty after a period of long hard work, we laugh. We laugh, when news is brought to us which we hardly believe could have happened. The actor or singer cannot help laughing after a successful play; the grave professor smiles when he solves his problem; and the banker, speculator, and financier smile when their plans and schemes have been successfully carried out. The politician, the statesman has his grim smile after a successful campaign, and the general has his grin after a triumphant battle. This is the laughter of triumph.

And Miriam the prophetess took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.

And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath been thrown into the sea.

We have here the joy, song, and laughter of triumph.

CHAPTER III

THE LUDICROUS

We may now reverse the process. Suppose the child in playing with the ball sees one who does not know how to catch it; misses it every time; knocks himself against the ball without getting hold of it; slips, falls down, picks himself up and runs after the ball without being able to catch it. In short, the person is awkward, clumsy, finds difficulties where there are none. Friction appears where there should be smoothness; hardship is manifest where ease and grace are expected.. The child laughs the laughter of triumph, not with the person, but at the person; from the height of his supposed efficiency or ideal of efficiency the child laughs the laughter of triumph at the deficiencies of the person-the person is ridiculed. Any supposed deficiency in appearance, in person, or in action is laughed at—is ridiculed. We are now in the domain of the comic. Children in school ridicule any clumsiness, awkwardness, or any personal deficiency; they make merry over the lame, the hunchback, the cross-eyed, the blind. For that matter, we find the same amusements among the uncultivated who make merry over the bodily defects of their neighbors and acquaintances.

Old Homer, when he wishes to ridicule Thersites, presents the ancient demagogue as:

ill favored beyond all men that came to Ilios. Bandy-legged was he, and lame of one foot, and his

shoulders rounded, arched down over his chest; and over them his head was warped, and a scanty stubble sprouted on it.

Victor Hugo, in his "Notre Dame de Paris," represents the crowd bursting into a thunder of applause and shouts of convulsive, derisive laughter at the sight of the ugly, misshapen, one-eyed, bandy-legged, huge-headed, splay-footed, thick-nosed, horseshoe-mouthed, doublehumped, deformed monster hunchback, Quasimodo.

When the great Russian writer, Gogol, wishes to ridicule the type he represents by Sobakevitch he makes the latter look defective, awkward, and clumsy.

To com

Sobakevitch looked like a medium sized bear. plete this resemblance his coat was the color of a bear's fur; his sleeves were long; his trousers were large; he was flat-footed, walked both awry and askew, and trod constantly upon the feet of other people. His face shone like a bright copper coin.

To present him as still clumsier and more deficient the great writer adds:

There are many faces over whose formation Nature did not pause long in thought, nor employ any delicate instruments, but simply hewed them at full sweep of her arm; she grasped her axe, a nose appeared; she grasped it again-the lips appeared; with a big auger she formed the eyes; and without planing it down, she loosed the figure in the world, saying: "Let it have life."

Even refined and cultivated people cannot suppress a smile when they hear one stammer. Thus Shakespeare in his "Merry Wives of Windsor" makes his characters ridiculous by representing Sir Hugh Evans, the parson,

as defective in speech, and Sir John Falstaff as defective in bodily appearance. "Very goot," says Evans, "I will make a prief in my notebook." Of Falstaff Mrs. Ford says: "What tempest, I trow, threw this whale, with so many tons of oil in his belly, ashore at Windsor?" As Sir Evans, the parson, is awkward in his speech, so Falstaff, the fat man, is clumsy in his body. Both of them, on account of such clumsiness, are exposed by Shakespeare as objects of ridicule.

The following jokes about stammerers may illustrate our point:

A stutterer once asked one of the guards in a railway station: "How f-f-f-f-far is it t-t-t-t-to C-C-C-C-Cambridge?"

The guard did not answer.

The stutterer repeated his question; again the guard remained silent. The stutterer became angry and turned to the next guard, "I shall r-r-rep-p-p-port t-t-that I asked him h-h-how f-f-f-far it w-w-was t-t-t-to C-C-C-C-Cambridge and he r-r-r-ref-f-fused t-t-t-tto answer."

m-m-m-man.

The guard gave the information and then turned to the first silent guard and asked him why he did not give the required information.

"D-D-D-D-Do you t-t-t-think I want m-m-m-m-my b-b-b-b-b-blamed head kn-n-n-n-nocked off?"

A gentleman, stammering much in his speech, laid down a winning card; and then said to his partner, "How S-s-s-sa-ay you now, w-w-was not t-t-t-this c-c-c-c-card P-P-p-p-passing we-we-well 1-1-1-laid ?"

"Yes," says the other, "it was well laid, but it needs not half the cackling."

I have found out a gig-gig-gift for my fuf-fuf-fair,

I have found out where the rattle-snakes bub-bub-breed; Will you co-co-come, and I'll show you the bub-bub-bear, And the lions and tit-tit-tigers at fuf-fuf-feed.

I know where the co-co-cockatoos's song

Makes mum-mum-melody through the sweet vale; Where the mum-monkeys gig-gig-grin all the day long Or gracefully swing by the tit-tit-tail.

You shall pip-play, dear, some did-did-delicate joke With the bub-bub-bear on the tit-tit-top of his pip-pippip-pole;

But observe, 'tis forbidden to pip-poke

At the bub-bub-bear with your pip-pip-pink pip-pip-pippip-parasol!

You shall see the huge elephant pip-pip-play,

You shall gig-gig-gaze on the stit-stit-stately racoon; And then did-dear, together we'll stray

To the cage of the bub-bub-blue-faced bab-bab-boon.

You wished (I r-r-remember it well,

And I lul-lul-loved you the m-m-more for the wish) To witness the bub-bub-beautiful pip-pip-pelican swallow The 1-1-live little fuf-fuf-fish!

Molière does not hesitate to utilize the defect of stammering to enhance physical and mental awkwardness, and hence the comical side of the characters represented. Our dime museums still keep on amusing the public with their proverbial fat men. The stoutness and fatness of Falstaff are utilized by Shakespeare to enhance the comic situations in which Falstaff is put.

What is it specially that is comic in the fat man?