“Do you know why your head is like Alaska?”
“No.”
“Because it’s a great place for white bears.”
A few miles beyond Hammersmith, a village on the banks of the Thames, in England, is another village called Turnham Green. One day at a tavern the peas were of an unmistakable yellow, and one of the guests said to the waiter that he ought to send them to Hammersmith.
“Why?” asked the waiter. “Because,” returned the wag, “that’s the best way to Turnham Green.”
This was overheard by Oliver Goldsmith, who, a few days afterwards, undertook to palm the bon mot off as his own; therefore, calling the waiter to him, he pointed to the peas, which were very far from green, and told him to take them to Hammersmith.
“Why?” asked the other. “Because that is the way to make ’em green.”
As the point of the joke was lost, nobody laughed, whereat Goldsmith said in an angry tone, “Why don’t you laugh? That was an excellent joke when I heard it a week ago, and I laughed heartily at it.”
An unfortunate attempt at reproducing another’s wit was made by a man who had more money than education. He did not understand the pun, but judged from the applause with which it was greeted that it must be excellent. During the dinner at which he was a guest, a waiter let a boiled tongue slip off the plate on which he was bearing it, and it fell on the table.
The host at once apologized for the mishap as a lapsus linguæ (slip of the tongue). The joke was the best thing at the dinner, and our friend concluded to bring it up at his own table.