Frostburg mining journal., 1883-10-20
SCORING Il "FUNNY MAN"
SOME REVELATIONS WHICH PROVE THAT
HE rs NOT so AanEEABLE AS HE
N1uUT nv

bOhE REVELATIONS WulCH PaOYE THAT
lie rs Not SO AGREEABLE AS HE
MIGHT BIZ.
Stephenson" IN Boston Budget
Sitting hero, delightfully."- remote
from the roars of laughter which your
fondly cherished distinguishing char
acteristic is probably causing some.
where, it is difficult to realize your ex-
istence, for Miss Upright remarked,
"You are actually Incredible" She
said so because she had found you
smiling happily and sweetly at the
efforts Of a poor old apple woman to
save her stock from the pillaging
fingers and greedy mouths of the
street Bedouins who, having overset
her stand, were intent on gathering up
the spoil.
The grotesque attitudes into which
the old woman fell as she crept hither
and thither, clamoring shrilly, now
dropping an orange while she paused to
fling an especially we'll adapted name
at her tormentors, and leaving telling
vituperation unfinished, in order to
snatch an apple from the very fingers of
q marauder, amused you while one of
our street blockades went through the
regular wearisome stages of laundering,
of willful entanglement, of stubborn
profanity, of absolute despair and of
sudden resolution into perfect order,
and until Miss Upright, who charged
bravely upon the boys and drove them
from the field ut the point Of her para
sol, and stared at your smiling face
with angry amazement. You could not
make her see the humorous side of the
affair, and assued her with exquisite af-
liability that she deprived herself of
much pleasure by her persistent blind
ness to the fun which you had found in
the scene, and the lady was heard to
mutter something about having the
spirit of man before she declared you
incredible.
Master Adam sold the same thing
years ago, when he found you chuck
ling over the girations of little Grey
son, who, essaying his new pocket
fishing tackle in the corridor, when
sent on an errand, had caught himself
very neatly by the scalp, and was un-
dergoing tortures in his double capacity
of angler and fish. Master Adam told
you then that nothing but suffering
would make man of you, and alas!
the suffering has not come, and you are
the funny man of your circle, and there
is nothing too low and nothing too high
to be mark for what you call your
humor.
There is no church of any denomina-
ton which you can attend without see
ing something absurd, not only in the
clergyman, but in the congregation and
in the form of worship, and you have
made great many puns on the most
solemn passages in all the creeds
There is no politician and no point in
politics upon which you will not jest;
no scientific truths so lofty or so pro-
found that it may not be the topic of
your jests; no poetry which you
will not debase by your paro'
dies, and no character, no person
who is too absurd to furnish fuel
for your cracking laughter. Not even
that feeling which you call love acts as
safeguard between you and its OBJ
jects, and both your mother and the
wife, whom you won in spite OF your
self, are liable at any moment to be.
come the subjects of verbal and practi'
cal jokes, and how your children survive
the course of ear-tweaking, hair pulling,
frightening and teasing through which
they have passed is incredible even to
your mother-in-law, who declared when
her daughter married you that she
should never be surprised at anything
again.