The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-07-21
THE MIDDLE AGED MAN.
Recalling nm Old Joke, Re Is Reminded Of
Ills Own Increasing Years.

mo little thing that has ha opened to me
recently y said the middle aged man
has brought to my mind so strikingly as
this slight incident did the difference be-
tween the old times and the new, nor has
any little thing 30 wildly reminded me
OF my increasing years.
One OF the standard jokes that had point
in the times when l was a boy and tina
went the rounds in print then, besides
being often brought into play in jocular
conversation, related to ones having left
his pockctbook at home on the piano.
Here, say, is a man buying something
in n store, and when he comes to pay for
it he reaches in his pocket in which he
always carries his purse And IL isn't
therel
And then, surprised at not finding IL
there, he pats all his other pockets in sue
c~ession. and then reaches in each and
every one of them in search of IL, to dis
cover that he hasn't got 1t about him
anywhere. And then he looks up and
says:
swell. by graciousi I haven't got sny
money. must have left my pocketbook
on the piano!
This joke in its day was considered n
good one, easy and plain and yet not
without some subtlety, a joke appealing
to many, because originally it was put ont
not as a joke at all, but as a bluff, a , some
thing that was seriously ~propounded and
perhaps seriously accepted.
Its original utterer IL supposed 10 ha wa
been a man who had put up a fair front
but who when the pinch GA me proved 70
have no money and who then accounted
for it's absence in a way to imply that while
he had no money with him he was never
theless a man of resources, as this Incl
dental remark, casually made, was in
tended to show. And perhaps il went
He had left his money on the piano. m he
had q piano il was a reasonable Inference
that he was a man OF at least some means,
for in those lays pianos were, compa ra :
lively speaking, rare. and SO this man h
had left his pocketbook home ON tba
piano might be a man who could be
trusted.
80 as to its origin and perhaps az To
its occasional early use; but later II was
regarded as q Joke only, in which manner
Of acceptance it obtained its widest Cur
rencv. with its humorous snbtIetv ~
meaning. In this latter use the man to
whom it was up to to paw something and
who found, as perhaps he knew and as
others had shrewdiv guessed, that he had
nc money said jokinglv:
well. l guess | must have left nv
money home on he piano
But times have cha n oed, and the old
joke, with whatever significance, no longer
goes
This morning when I went to nav for
something in a store where I trade I found
that ] had actually left nv pocketbook at
home, end the old joke coming ba OK 10
me said 70 the young men who kept the
store. smilin civ:
"i guess must have left my pocketbook
on the piano
But the old joke awakened in them M
rcsponse whatever. And whv should itp
They have a piano, I have a pin no, svery-
body in these days has y piano. and 40
my remark as a joke had no speciaI sig
hihca nee for them. II was simply a state
nent v me that I had left nv money on
the mia no. ' v"
; was brouRht to realize that. az
cept for those old enough 10 recall il this
once noporable and generally endowed
joke had now lost It's humor,s