In descriptions of persons we are on safer ground, and the reader, if he still care, after all we have said, for such-like foolishness, may explain these jokes by the incongruity of teleological beings acting in an ateleological manner. We are determined to be content in picking out passages that amuse us and in commenting on them but by no means explaining them.
Mr. Belloc himself has invented or recorded the distinction between things that would be funny anyhow, and things that are funny because they are true. Most of his jokes fall into the second category. The German baron at Oxford, the gentleman who asked when and for what action Lord Charles Beresford received his title, the poet who wrote a poem containing the lines:
Neither the nations of the East, nor the nations of the West,
Have thought the thing Napoleon thought was to their interest,
all these people are admirably funny because they do, or very well might, exist. In fact, most of Mr. Belloc's humour is observation, a slow delicate savouring of human stupidity and pretence.
The sporadic stories in his books are funny because, at least, we can believe them to be true. Read this from Esto Perpetua:
An old man, small, bent, and full of energy opened the door to me.... "I was expecting you," he said. I remembered that the driver had promised to warn him, and I was grateful.
"I have prepared you a meal," he went on. Then, after a little hesitation, "It is mutton: it is neither hot nor cold." ... He brought me their very rough African wine and a loaf, and sat down opposite me, looking at me fixedly under the candle. Then he said:
"To-morrow you will see Timgad, which is the most wonderful town in the world."
"Certainly not to-night," I answered; to which he said, "No!"
I took a bite of the food, and he at once continued rapidly: "Timgad is a marvel. We call it 'the marvel.' I had thought of calling this house 'Timgad the Marvel,' or, again, 'Timgad the——'"