"You see," continued he, "I cannot always trust my own judgment. There's no credit in my laughing, bless your heart. I'd be a monster, yes, a monster, my dear sir, if I didn't. I'm just like this monkey as you see him now in this position, ready to go over the other side with the slightest provocation. I have everything that heart can wish, sir, to laugh at and be happy; but they, poor dears, they are so far on the minus side of merriment, as well they may be, that it takes a little something extra, you see, to get a good hearty squeal out of them."
I became at once intensely interested in the "poor dears" alluded to. The sight of the old gentleman was enough to make one do unheard-of feats of heroism in favor of any person or thing of which he might take the least notice. I ventured to suppose that they had lost something or somebody lately, with the intention of offering my hand or purse as the case might be.
"Can't say that they have," he replied, rubbing his shiny bald head. "Being generally on the minus side of everything, including laughter, they haven't anything to lose which you or I might think worth keeping, except their lives, and somehow I think they've got used to losing even them pretty comfortably."
I was perplexed, and muttered, "Curious sort of people, those."
"But interesting, you'll allow?" said he.
I replied that I had no doubt of it; and I meant it, for so charming and open-hearted was this old gentlemen, that I was ready to subscribe unhesitatingly to any asseveration he might be pleased to make; "but—" I added, about to express my ignorance of the individuals in question, when he interrupted me.
"Why—but? My Minnie, the Darling of the World and the Sunshine of my life" (expressing the titles of that person in the largest capitals), "and I held an ante-Christmas council this morning, and it was proposed by the president, that is myself, and seconded by the said Darling of the World and Sunshine of my life, and carried by an overwhelming majority, including Bob, who said he went in for anything good, that buts were unparliamentary when Christmas was concerned; and so we called the roll, twenty in all, and there being no buts, they all stood unchallenged, making twenty baskets, and now as many monkeys to go in them. What do you think of it! Capital, wasn't it?"
I was certain it was, and was prepared to go any odds in its favor.
"What's more," he added, "they are going privately."