BY THE AUTHOR OF “SPEAKING OF OPERATIONS,” ETC. [Illustration] A LAUGH A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY _His Favorite Stories as Told by_ _Irvin S. Cobb_ [Illustration] GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC. CL _Copyright, 1923,_ _By George H. Doran Company_ _Copyright, 1921,_ _By the Central Press Association_ _Copyright, 1922, 1923,_ _By the McNaught Syndicate, Inc._ _A Laugh a Day Keeps the Doctor Away._ _Printed in the United States of America_ _To_ _Three of the Best Story-Tellers I Know_: ROBERT H. DAVIS SAMUEL G. BLYTHE HAL S. CORBETT FOREWORD The anecdotal form of humor is largely, I think, a native institution. Americans did not invent or discover the short humorous story, it is true. Indeed, some short stories still are making their rounds which were old when the Pyramids were young. Probably the piper who piped before Moses rounded out his act with one of the standard jokes of the period—a joke which, dressed in new clothes, is doing duty somewhere to-day. The mother-in-law joke could not have originated with Adam, because Adam had no mother-in-law, but I have not the slightest doubt that Cain began using it shortly after his marriage. And beyond peradventure Father Noah wiled away many a dragging half hour in the Ark by telling Shem, Ham and Japhet one of the ones which begin: “It seems there were two Irishmen named Pat and Mike. And Pat said to Mike, ‘Faith, an’ be jabers!—’” So it would not do for us to lay claim to sole responsibility for the short humorous story. But I am quite certain that we, more than any other people, have made it a part of our daily life, using it to point morals, to express situations, to help us solve puzzles. To these extents, at least, it is a national institution with us. Americans like to tell short stories and like to laugh at them. We are by inheritance a race of story-tellers. There are short stories which sum up the characteristics of white Americans or black Americans, Jews or Gentiles, city folk or country folk more completely than could ponderous essays or scholarly expositions. It is of record that Abraham Lincoln, in the darkest days of the Union, cured more than one crisis with some homely anecdote, some aptly barbed retort.