We are quite willing to be reminded that many authors do not recognize the clear notional and objective distinction between wit and comic, as we were impelled to do, and that they classify wit merely as “the comic of speech” or “of words.” To test this view let us select one example of intentional and one of involuntary comic of speech and compare it with wit. We have already mentioned before that we are in a good position to distinguish comic from witty speech. “With a fork and with effort, his mother pulled him out of the mess,” is only comical, but Heine’s verse about the four castes of the population of Göttingen: “Professors, students, Philistines, and cattle,” is exquisitely witty. As an example of the intentional comic of speech I will take as a model Stettenheim’s _Wippchen_. We call Stettenheim witty because he possesses the cleverness that evokes the comic. The wit which one “has” in contradistinction to the wit which one “makes,” is indeed correctly conditioned by this ability. It is true that the letters of Wippchen are also witty in so far as they are interspersed with a rich collection of all sorts of witticisms, some of which very successful ones, (as “festively undressed” when he speaks of a parade of savages), but what lends the peculiar character to these productions is not these isolated witticisms, but the superabundant flow of comic speech contained therein. Originally _Wippchen_ was certainly meant to represent a satirical character, a modification of Freytag’s Schmock, one of those uneducated persons who trade in the educational treasure of the nation and abuse it; but the pleasure in the comic effect experienced in representing this person seems gradually to have pushed to the background the author’s satirical tendency. Wippchen’s productions are for the most part “comic nonsense.” The author has justly utilized the pleasant mood resulting from the accumulation of such achievements to present beside the altogether admissible material all sorts of absurdities which would be intolerable in themselves. Wippchen’s nonsense appears to be of a specific nature only on account of its special technique. If we look closer into some of these “witticisms,” we find that some forms which have impressed their character on the whole production are especially conspicuous. Wippchen makes use mostly of compositions (fusions), of modifications of familiar expressions and quotations. He replaces some of the banal elements in these expressions by others which are usually more pretentious and more valuable. This naturally comes near to the techniques of wit. _The Comic of Speech_