Poeta nascitur non fit;
and then, to carry the joke one step farther, add, "that it is not a fit subject for a jest."
A man falling into a tan-pit, you may call "sinking in the sublime"; a climbing boy suffocated in a chimney meets with a sootable death; and a pretty girl having caught the smallpox is to be much pitted.
On the subject of the ear and its defects, talk first of something in which a cow sticks, and end by telling the story of the man who, having taken great pains to explain something to his companion, at last got in a rage at his apparent stupidity, and exclaimed, "Why, my dear sir, don't you comprehend? The thing is as plain as A, B, C." "I dare say it is," said the other; "but I am D, E, F."
It may be as well to give the beginner something of a notion of the use he may make of the most ordinary words, for the purpose of quibbleism. For instance, in the way of observation: The loss of a hat is always felt; if you don't like sugar, you may lump it; a glazier is a panes-taking man; candles are burnt because wick-ed things always come to light; a lady who takes you home from a party is kind in her carriage, and you say "Nunc est ridendum" when you step into it; if it happen to be a chariot, she is a charitable person; birds'-nests and king-killing are synonymous, because they are high trees on; a bill for building a bridge should be sanctioned by the Court of Arches as well as the House of Piers; when a man is dull, he goes to the seaside to Brighton; a Cockney lover, when sentimental, should live in Heigh Hoburn; the greatest fibber is the man most to re-lie upon; a dean expecting a bishopric looks for lawn; a sui-cide kills pigs, and not himself; a butcher is a gross man, but a fig-seller is a grocer; Joshua never had a father or mother, because he was the son of a Nun; your grandmother and great-grandmother were your aunt's sisters; a leg of mutton is better than heaven, because nothing is better than heaven, and a leg of mutton is better than nothing.
Races are matters of course; an ass never can be a horse, although he may be a mayor; the Venerable Bede was the mother of Pearl; a baker makes bread when he kneads it; a doctor cannot be a doctor all at once, because he comes to it by degrees; a man hanged at Newgate has taken a drop too much; the bridle day is that on which a man leads a woman to the halter. Never mind the aspirate; in punning all's fair.
Puns interrogatory are at times serviceable. You meet a man carrying a hare: ask him if it is his own hare, or a wig?—there you stump him. Why is Parliament Street like a compendium? Because it goes to a bridge. Why is a man murdering his mother in a garret a worthy person? Because he is above committing a crime. Instances of this kind are innumerable; and if you want to render your question particularly pointed, you are, after asking it once or twice, to say "D'ye give it up?"—then favor your friends with the solution.
Puns scientific are effective whenever a scientific man or men are in company, because, in the first place, they invariably hate puns, especially those which are capable of being twisted into jokes which have no possible relation to the science of which the words to be joked upon are terms; and because, in the next place, dear, laughing girls, who are wise enough not to be sages, will love you for disturbing the self-satisfaction of the philosophers, and raising a laugh or titter at their expense.
Where there are three or four geologists of the party, if they talk of their scientific tours made to collect specimens, call the old ones "ninny-hammers," and the young ones "chips of the old block"; and then inform them that claret is the best specimen of quartz in the world.
If you fall in with a botanist who is holding forth, talk of the quarrels of flowers as a sequel to the loves of the plants, and say they decide their differences with pistols.