The one sure Joke.

A philosopher has put it on record that he always felt sad when he reflected on the sorrows of humanity.  But when he reflected on its amusements he felt sadder still.

Why was it so funny that the baby had the lodger’s nose?  We laughed for a full minute by the clock.

Why do I love to see a flabby-faced man go behind curtains, and, emerging in a wig and a false beard, say that he is now Bismarck or Mr. Chamberlain?  I have felt resentment against the Lightning Impersonator ever since the days of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.  During that summer every Lightning Impersonator ended his show by shouting, while the band played the National Anthem, “Queen Victoria!”  He was not a bit like Queen Victoria.  He did not even, to my thinking, look a lady; but at once I had to stand up in my place and sing “God save the Queen.”  It was a time of enthusiastic loyalty; if you did not spring up quickly some patriotic old fool from the back would reach across and hit you over the head with the first thing he could lay his hands upon.

Other music-hall performers caught at the idea.  By ending up with “God save the Queen” any performer, however poor, could retire in a whirlwind of applause.  Niggers, having bored us with tiresome songs about coons and honeys and Swanee Rivers, would, as a last resource, strike up “God save the Queen” on the banjo.  The whole house would have to rise and cheer.  Elderly Sisters Trippet, having failed to arouse our enthusiasm by allowing us a brief glimpse of an ankle, would put aside all frivolity, and tell us of a hero lover named George, who had fought somebody somewhere for his Queen and country.  “He fell!”—bang from the big drum and blue limelight.  In a recumbent position he appears to have immediately started singing “God save the Queen.”