sitting on the bench, the judge will be unable to determine matters. If he’s at the theater, he’ll neither let you hear nor see anything; nor will he even permit him that sits next to him at the table to eat his meat. He declares it very hard for him to be silent, his tongue being so very well hung that he’d rather be accounted as garrulous as a swallow than be silent, and patiently bears all ridicule, even that of his own children, who, when they want to go to rest, request him to talk to them that they may the sooner fall asleep. --_The Characters._ One of the Characters described by Theophrastus is _The Stupid Man_, and runs thus: “The stupid man is one who, after doing a sum and setting down the total, will ask the person next him, ‘What does it come to?’” It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that this is the beginning or at least the popularizing of the class of jests known as Noodles or Noodle Stories. For all nations and races have folk-lore that details the sayings and doings of the witless or silly. The Literature of the Orient abounds in these tales and European stories of the same sort are equally abundant. The collection of jokes ascribed to Hierocles, may or may not have been gathered by that Alexandrian philosopher. The only form in which we may read them is said to have been made not earlier than the Ninth Century, but the stories themselves are among the very earliest of the traditional jests of all time. Some of these old jokemongers’ witticisms are capital--so good, in fact, that the parentage of many of them has been claimed by modern wits. No doubt we shall recognise some old friends as we read: I. A pedant (for so we must probably translate, in conventional phrase, the pervading Scholastichus of the old jokemonger) wishing to teach his horse not to eat much, gave him no food. Eventually the horse died of starvation; and he complained to his friends, “I have suffered a great loss, for just when I had taught my horse to live upon nothing he died.” II. A pedant having bought a cask of wine, sealed it. But his slave bored a hole and stole the wine. The master was amazed to find that, though his seals were unbroken, the wine gradually diminished. Someone suggested that he should examine whether it had been taken out from the bottom. “Fool,” he replied, “it isn’t the lower part that’s gone. It’s the upper.” III. A pedant suffered shipwreck in a tempest, and seeing the passengers tie themselves to different articles on board, fastened himself to one of the anchors. IV. Another had to cross a river, and went on board the ferry-boat on horseback. Somebody asked him why he did so, and he replied because he was in a hurry. V. Yet another, anxious to know whether he looked well when he was asleep, stood before a looking-glass with his eyes shut to see. VI. A landlord, who had a house to sell, went about amongst his friends, carrying a brick as a specimen.