"'And are you there, you sinner d--d, And do you fare so well! Were it not for redeeming grace You'd long since been in hell.'" The unworthy member succumbed and returned to the meeting, wondering whether the verse was an impromptu or whether it was part of one of the inspiring Sunday hymns our grandfathers sang in their cheerless, unwarmed meeting-houses. In a version of Watts' Hymns this verse is found:-- "And are we wretches still alive, And do we yet rebel? 'Tis boundless, 'tis amazing love That bears us up from hell." It might have been the one Mr. Ripley quoted. I have heard it said that a prominent literary man "could not understand the condition of mind it required to make a pun." It would be out of place here to try to explain that condition to him or to any one else. It is certainly not an unhappy frame of mind, and I am not aware that it indicates any depraved condition. I don't know of any very bad men who make puns, but I have known of many good men who make bad puns. It is not an avaricious state of the mind, for who ever heard of "puns for sale or manufactured to order," or of a man getting rich in the wholesale or retail pun trade! In fact, a pun is like an egg--the moment you crack it the meat is out. Some men carry things to extremes; I wouldn't myself like to be a punster _in toto_, but only now and then to have a finger in one. But really, the condition of mind seems to be the same as that of some of our criminals who profess they committed the deed because they "couldn't help it," or the boy who was asked angrily "why he whistled?" "He didn't," he replied, "it whistled itself." I imagine our literary friend thinks that a punster draws the steel blade of his intellect, discovers some close-mouthed, hard-fisted sort of a word or sentence doubled up like an oyster and deliberately splits it apart, one shell on one side, one on the other and the soft thing drops out between. I could only despise the sort of brain that would do such a deed. A pun is a part of the sunshine of words. It gives a sparkle and a glow to language. It is a big pendulum that swings from torrid to frigid zone quicker than a telegram goes. If you hold on to it, you will find yourself in both places in a jiffy, and back again to the spot where you start from without being hurt, and the jog to your intellect, if you happen to have any, is only of an agreeable nature.