"O-o-oh! So yo' was born at Yonkers, was yuh? Yaas, suh—Yonkers! Ah don't know much erbout Yonkers; but Ah guess Yonkers is a nice State too, ain't it?"
"Well," I laughed, "yes—Yonkers is a pretty nice State too—what you might call a Comatose State; but—"
"Yaas, suh—Ah've heern tell dat Yonkers was one o' dem cummytoe States, an' Ah guess dat's a pretty good kind ob a State to be bohn in. What yo' sellin'?" This with a hasty glance at my suitcase.
"Brains," said I.
"Lawsy me! Sellin' brains, eh?" said he. "Waal, suh, Ah'm sorry. Yo' look so kind o' set up Ah thought yo' was a-sellin' seegyars. Yaas, suh—Ah'd hoped yo' was." He gazed wistfully along the shining rails. "Dem seegyar drummahs is mighty free wid deir samples, suh," he continued, "and Ah been a hopin' yo'd be able to spar' me a han'ful like de res' ob 'em does. But ef yo're dealin' in brains, hit ain't likely yo' got enough to gib any away."
I may add that his disappointment was short-lived; for before we parted I took him across to the general store that fronted on the railroad track, and by the judicious expenditure of a quarter bought him a supply of his favorite brand large enough to last him a week. A single one of them would have done for me forever.
Repartee has always been a characteristic gift of the American people, due no doubt to a political system that turns almost every community into a debating society at least once a year, and sometimes oftener. Readiness of verbal retort has thereby become an inheritance that grows richer in the squandering of it. It has been a quality so conspicuous that it has led a great many people, justly or otherwise, to assert that there are more really good jokes to be found in the course of a year in the columns of the "Congressional Record" than in the cleverest of the world's comic papers. However this may be, I know that one of the zestful things about a lecturer's life is the jestful thing that lurks at his side almost everywhere he turns.
I have had many proofs of this in my own wanderings; some direct, and some at long range. An amusing instance of the long-range retort occurred some years ago when I found in my mail one morning a letter from a gentleman living in Wyoming, an entire stranger to me, who said that he had heard from a friend that I wrote after-dinner speeches for others as part of my professional work.
Somehow or other [he continued] I have managed to get a reputation as a wit which I don't deserve; but I've got to live up to it, or go under. Now it has occurred to me that since you are in the business of writing after-dinner speeches for others you might turn out three crackajacks for me.
