Produced by Neville Allen, Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR Edited by J. A. HAMMERTON Designed to provide in a series of volumes, each complete in itself, the cream of our national humour, contributed by the masters of comic draughtsmanship and the leading wits of the age to "Punch," from its beginning in 1841 to the present day MR. PUNCH'S AFTER-DINNER STORIES [Illustration] [Illustration: PROGRESS.--"I maintain that the race has improved in physique since those days. Now _we_ couldn't get into that armour!"] * * * * * MR. PUNCH'S AFTER-DINNER STORIES _WITH 155 ILLUSTRATIONS_ BY JOHN LEECH, CHARLES KEENE, GEORGE DU MAURIER, PHIL MAY, L. RAVEN-HILL, J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE, F. H. TOWNSEND, REGINALD CLEAVER, LEWIS BAUMER, A. S. BOYD, TOM WILKINSON, G. D. ARMOUR, AND OTHERS [Illustration] PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE PROPRIETORS OF "PUNCH" THE EDUCATIONAL BOOK CO. LTD. * * * * * THE PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR _Twenty-five volumes, crown 8vo, 192 pages fully illustrated_ LIFE IN LONDON COUNTRY LIFE IN THE HIGHLANDS SCOTTISH HUMOUR IRISH HUMOUR COCKNEY HUMOUR IN SOCIETY AFTER DINNER STORIES IN BOHEMIA AT THE PLAY MR. PUNCH AT HOME ON THE CONTINONG RAILWAY BOOK AT THE SEASIDE MR. PUNCH AFLOAT IN THE HUNTING FIELD MR. PUNCH ON TOUR WITH ROD AND GUN MR. PUNCH AWHEEL BOOK OF SPORTS GOLF STORIES IN WIG AND GOWN ON THE WARPATH BOOK OF LOVE WITH THE CHILDREN [Illustration] * * * * * POST-PRANDIAL WIT [Illustration] There is a sense, of course, in which everything from the pages of MR. PUNCH might be regarded as coming into a collection entitled "After Dinner Stories." All good stories are really for telling after dinner. Somehow or other one seldom associates wit and humour with the breakfast table, although the celebrated breakfast parties of Rogers, the banker, were doubtless in no way deficient in either. Over the walnuts and wine, when men have feasted well and are feeling on the best of terms with themselves and their fellows, the cares of the day put past and the pleasures of the gas-lit hours begun, that is undoubtedly the ideal time for the flow of wit.