_A man about to go upon a journey intrusted his daughter to his friend, begging him to watch over her chastity during his absence. When he returned some months later he found that she was pregnant. Naturally he reproached his friend. The latter alleged that he could not explain this unfortunate occurrence. “Where has she been sleeping?” the father finally asked. “In the same room with my son,” replied the friend. “How is it that you allowed her to sleep in the same room with your son after I had begged you so earnestly to take good care of her?” remonstrated the father. “Well,” explained the friend, “there was a screen between them. There was your daughter’s bed and over there was my son’s bed and between them stood the screen.” “And suppose he went behind the screen? What then?” asked the parent. “Well, in that case,” rejoined the friend thoughtfully, “it might be possible.”_ In this joke—aside from the other qualities of this poor witticism—we can easily get the reduction. Obviously, it would read like this: “You have no right to reproach me. How could you be so foolish as to leave your daughter in a house where she must live in the constant companionship of a young man? As if it were possible for a stranger to be responsible for the chastity of a maiden under such circumstances!” The seeming stupidity of the friend here also serves as a reflection of the stupidity of the father. By means of the reduction we have eliminated the nonsense contained in the witticism as well as the witticism itself. We have not gotten rid of the “nonsense” element itself, as it finds another place in the context of the sentence after it has been reduced to its true meaning. We can now also attempt the reduction of the joke about the cannon. The officer might have said: “I know, Ike, that you are an intelligent business man, but I must tell you that you are very stupid if you do not realize that one cannot act in the army as one does in business, where each one is out for himself and competes with the other. Military service demands subordination and co-operation.” The technique of the nonsense-witticisms hitherto discussed really consists in advancing something apparently absurd or nonsensical which, however, discloses a sense serving to illustrate and represent some other actual absurdity and nonsense. Has the employment of contradiction in the technique of wit always this meaning? Here is another example which answers this affirmatively. On an occasion when Phocion’s speech was applauded he turned to his friends and asked: “_Did I say something foolish?_” This question seems paradoxical, but we immediately comprehend its meaning. “What have I said that has pleased this stupid crowd? I ought really to be ashamed of the applause, for if it appealed to these fools, it could not have been very clever after all.”