_A physician, leaving the sick-bed of a wife, whose husband accompanied him, exclaimed doubtfully: “I do not like her looks.” “I have not liked her looks for a long time,” was the quick rejoinder of the husband._ The physician, of course, referred to the condition of the wife, but he expressed his apprehension about the patient in such words as to afford the husband the means of utilizing them to assert his conjugal aversion. Concerning a satirical comedy Heine remarked: “_This satire would not have been so biting had the author of it had more to bite._” This jest is a better example of metaphoric and common double meaning than of real play upon words, but at present we are not concerned about such strict lines of demarcation. _Charles Matthews, the elder, one of England’s greatest actors, was asked what he was going to do with his son_ (the young man was destined for architecture). “_Why_,” answered the comedian, “_he is going to draw houses like his father_.” _Foote once asked a man why he forever sang one tune. “Because it haunts me,” replied the man. “No wonder,” said Foote, “you are continually murdering it.”_ Said the Dyspeptic Philosopher: “_One swallow doesn’t make a summer, nor quench the thirst._” _A gentleman had shown much ingenuity in evading a notorious borrower whom he had sent away many times with the request to call when he was “in.” One day, however, the borrower eluded the servant at the door and cornered his victim._ _“Ah,” said the host, seeing there was no way out of it, “at last I am in.”_ _“No,” returned the borrower in anticipation, “at last I am in and you are out.”_ Heine said in the _Harzreise_: “_I cannot recall at the moment the names of all the students, and among the professors there are some who have no name as yet._” Dr. Johnson said of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, which was poor in purse, but prolific in the distribution of its degrees: “_Let it persevere in its present plan and it may become rich_ by degrees.” Here the wit depends more on the manifold application than on the play on words. The keen-witted writer, Horatio Winslow, sums up the only too-familiar history of some American families as follows: A TALE OF TWO AMERICAN GENERATIONS _Gold Mine Gold Spoon Gold Cure_ The last couplet, gold cure, refers to the familiar cure for alcoholism. This wit is an excellent example of unification—everything is, as it were, of gold. The manifold meanings of the adjective which do not very strikingly contrast with one another make possible this “manifold application.” _Ambiguity_ Another play on words will facilitate the transition to a new subdivision of the technique of double meaning. The witty colleague who was responsible for the joke mentioned on page 42 is likewise responsible for this joke, current during the trial of Dreyfus: