“‘What are you doing in my grave?’
“‘What are you doin’ out of it?’ Mike replied.”
Soon afterward an amateur gave me the story as follows:
“I heard a story the other day by a man named Kendall about a man who went out in a graveyard at night to walk, about twelve o’clock. He fell into a ditch, and another fellow happened along and said, ‘What are you doing out of it?’—or something like that. I know I laughed like the deuce when I heard it.”
“What are you doing in my grave?”
But even when a story has been committed to memory or written in shorthand on a shirt-cuff, to be read off without a word lost or misplaced, much depends upon the teller. Some people’s voices are so effective that they can tell a story in the dark and “make good”; others can’t get through without calling all their features to help, with some assistance from their arms and legs. One man will lead you with his eye alone to the point of a story; another will drawl and stammer as if he had nothing to say, yet startle you into a laugh a minute.
Of course a great deal depends on the story itself. People are too grateful for a laugh to look backward and analyze the story that compelled it; they generally believe that fun is fun, and that is about as much as any one knows of it. The truth is that while there are all kinds of stories there is only one kind of humor.
As a rule, humorous stories are of American origin, comic stories are English, and witty stories are French. The humorous story depends upon the incidents and the manner of telling; comic and witty stories depend upon the matter. The humorous story may be spun out to any length; it may wander about as it pleases, and arrive at nowhere in particular; but the comic or witty story must be brief, and end in a sharp point. The humorous story bubbles along continually; the other kinds burst. The humorous tale is entirely a work of art, and only an artist can tell it; while the witty or comic story—oh, any one who knows it can tell it.