The amusement afforded by practical jokes is also largely dependent upon the discomfort of the victims. This kind of humour, happily now little known in this country, has been much in favour with Italian bandits, who occasionally unite whimsical fancy with great personal daring. A Piedmontese gentleman told me an instance in which two Counts, who were dining at an albergo, met a strange-looking man whom they took to be a sportsman like themselves. The conversation turned upon bandits, and the Counts expressed a hope that they might meet some, as they were well armed and would teach them a lesson. Their companion left before them, and walking along the road they were to take, ordered a labouring man whom he met to stand in an adjoining vineyard and hold up a vine-stake to his shoulder like a gun. As soon as the Counts' carriage came to the place the bandit rushed out, seized the horses, and called upon the Counts to deliver up their arms or he would order his men, whom they could see in the vineyard, to fire. The Counts not only obeyed the summons, but began to accuse one another of keeping something back. Shortly afterwards, on a doctor boasting in the same way, the bandit went out before him and stuck a bough in the road on which he hung a lantern. The doctor called out who's there? and was taking a deadly aim with his gun, when he was seized from behind and pinioned. The bandit said he should teach him a different lesson from that he deserved, and only deprived him of his gun. CHAPTER XXIII. Nomenclature--Three Classes of Words--Distinction between Wit and Humour--Wit sometimes dangerous, generally innocuous. The subject of which we have been treating in these volumes will suggest to us the logical distinctions to be drawn between three classes of words. First, we have those which imply that we are regarding something external, awakening laughter as the _ludicrous_ from _ludus_, a game, especially pointing to antics and gambols; the _ridiculous_ from _rideo_ to laugh, referring to that which occasions a demonstrative movement in the muscles of the countenance--implying a strong emotion, often of contempt, and generally applied to persons, as the ludicrous is to circumstances; the _grotesque_ referring to strangeness in form, such as is seen in fantastic _grottoes_, or in the quaint figures of sylvan deities which the Ancients placed in them, and the _absurd_, properly referring to acts of people who are defective in faculties. The ludicrous is often used in philosophical works to signify a feeling, and our second class will contain words which may refer either to something external or to the mind, such as _droll_, (from the German) _comical_, _amusing_, and _funny_. To say "I do not see any fun in it," is different from saying "I do not see any fun in him," and a man may be called funny, either in laudation or disparagement.