It seems impossible, right here, not to digress, chronologically, for a moment.
Every one will have noticed that these old time jests are the foundations on which many modern stories are built, but the last one quoted above is so palpably the prototype of a current Boston story that it must be told.
A small child named Halliwell, spending the night with a neighbor, Mrs. Cabot, knelt at the knee of her hostess to say her evening prayer.
“Our Father who art in Heaven,” the little visitor began devoutly, “Cabot be thy name—”
“What? What do you mean?” asked the startled lady.
“Oh,” said the child, “of course, at home, I say ‘Halliwell be thy name,’ but here, I thought it more polite to say Cabot.”
It is held by most writers on the subject that the great influx of humor into literature took place in the latter half of the sixteenth century.