“They tell me, Samanthy,” says the deacon, “that young Rube Perkins is kinder makin’ up to one of aour boarders. I s’pose ye hain’t noticed nothin’, mebbe?” “I’ve seen him a-settin’ alongside o’ that dough-faced critter times enough so he’d like ter wear aout the rocker on the piazzy; but I guess Rube had better not set enny too much store by what _she_ says to him. Them high-toned Whitney folks o’ hern daown Bosting way hain’t over ’n’ above anxious to hev Rube Perkins fur a son-in-law, I kin tell ye.” “Wa-al,” drawls the deacon, reflectively, “I kalkerlate they’ve got an idee she’d better make a good match while she’s abaout it.” “She’s thin enough to make a lucifer match,” rejoins Aunt Samanthy; and with this parting bit of irony she goes in to put the saleratus biscuit on the tea-table. * * * * * Of course this is not a model of a humorous story, but it will pass muster. It is, however, a very creditable specimen of a story built up, as I have shown, on a very slender foundation. Some humorists would give it an apologetic title, such as “Rural Sarcasm,” or “Aunt Samanthy’s Little Joke,” in order to let the reader down easy. III.--REVAMPING OLD JOKES. It often happens that the humorist finds himself unexpectedly called upon for jokes at a moment when he has no ideas about him. Perhaps he is away from his workshop where his tools are kept, or perhaps he has lost the combination of the safe in which his precious ideas are securely locked up. The problem of how to make bricks without straw, and the awful fate of the people who attempted it, stares him in the face. But his keen intelligence comes to his aid. Like the trusty guide in Mayne Reid’s story, he exclaims, “Ha, it is the celebrated joke-root bush, called by the Apaches the ha-ha plant!” and seizing an ancient jest, he tears it from the soil, carefully cleanses the esculent root from its clinging mould, and then proceeds to revamp it for modern use. The joke should be one that has slowly ripened under the suns of distant climes and other days. It should be perfectly mellow, and care must be taken to remove from it all particles of dust and lichen. Let us suppose, for example, that the joke, divested of all superfluities, presents this appearance: “A man once gave his friend a very small cup of very old wine, and the friend remarked that it was the smallest thing of its age he had ever seen.” I have selected this joke because it is one of the oldest of which the world has any record.