A picture by Du Maurier in _Punch_ once represented a man singing a comic song at an ‘At Home.’ Nobody laughed; some faces expressed wonder; some, pity; some, contempt; a few, indignation; but not one face smiled. Consider the difference: in the year 1837 every face would have been broadened out in a grin. Do we, therefore, laugh no more? We do not laugh so much, certainly, and we laugh differently. Our comic man of society still tells good stories, but he no longer sings songs; in his stories he prefers the rapier or the jewelled dagger to the bludgeon. Those who desire to make the acquaintance of the comic man, as he was accepted in society and in the middle-class, should read the works of Theodore Hook and of Albert Smith. To begin with, he played practical jokes; he continually played practical jokes, and he was never killed, as would now happen, by his victims. I am certain that we should kill a man who came to our houses and played the jokes which then were permitted to the comic man. He poured melted butter into coat pockets at suppers; he turned round signposts, and made them point the wrong way, in order to send people whither they did not wish to go. It may be remarked that his tricks were rarely original. He wrenched off door-knockers; he turned off the gas at the meter; he tied strings across the river to knock people backwards in their boats; he tied two doors together, and then rang both bells, and waited with a grin from ear to ear; he rang up people in the dead of the night on any pretext; he filled keyholes with powdered slate-pencil when the master of the house was coming home late; he hoaxed innocent ladies, and laughed when they were nearly driven mad with worry and terror; he went to masquerades, carrying a tray full of medicated sweets--think of such a thing!--which he distributed, and then retired, and came back in another dress to gaze upon the havoc he had wrought. Again, it was a time when candles were still carried about the house, and, as yet, it was thought that gas in bedrooms was dangerous. He dipped the candles waiting for the ladies when they went to bed into water, so that they spluttered and went out, and made alarming fireworks when they were lit; and then, to remove the horrible smell, the candles being of tallow, he offered to burn pastilles, but these were confections of gunpowder and water, and caused the liveliest emotions, and sent the poor ladies upstairs in an agony of nervous terror. [Illustration: WATCHMAN (From a Drawing by George Cruikshank in ‘London Characters’)]