A thousand honest bulls are less to be deprecated than the weeniest pun that was ever let loose. Before leaving this part of our subject it is perhaps desirable that we should remember that two of the very wittiest men of our own time have come to us from Ireland. One of them was the late Mr. Oscar Wilde and the other is Mr. George Bernard Shaw. Of Oscar Wilde, excepting that in his prime he was a wit of the first water, I shall say nothing. Mr. George Bernard Shaw, however, is another story. As a reformer and a serious writer I make small account of him. On the other hand, as a wit, he is a portent. He has been an unconscionable time coming into his own, but in America, at any rate, people are beginning, by childlike, dim degrees, to perceive that he has brilliance. If he had published the substance of his printed work in any other form but that of plays, he might have been a recognized and prosperous humorist long ago. The people who supply the wit and humor of the day may be set down, without injustice, for a sorry and indifferent company. Burnand, Payne, Emanuel, Jerome, Lucas, Sims, Hickory Wood, and Barrie—these are some of the names of them. And what do they stand for? Parts of _Punch_, _Eliza_, _Three Men in a Boat_, _The Inside Completuar Britanniaware_ (O blood and knives!), _Mustard and Cress_, or, The Fat Man’s Sabbath Morning, _The White Cat_, or, Cooper’s Entire, _Peter Pan_, or, The Old Man’s Crèche. Heaven save us and keep us from wishing that this squad of awkward witlings had never been born! Mr. George Bernard Shaw in his sole person, and Irishman though he be, is worth a wilderness of them. Some day we shall find it out, and in that good hour Ireland will be able to boast that one of her sons was nearly as great, nearly as humorous, and nearly as popular as, say, Mr. Mark Twain. CHAPTER XVI DIRT