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crowed at having the weeks told off on her fingers. Queer!
An hour was taken up with the account of her doings in Paris.
She had met all the nicest and naughtiest people. She had been
courted and flattered. An artist in a slouch hat, baggy corduroy
breeches, floppy tie and general 1830 misfit had made love to her
on the top of the Eiffel Tower.
And he said, laughed Judith, '_Partons ensemble. Comme on dit
en Anglais_fly with me!' I remarked that our state when we got
to the Champs de Mars would be an effective disguise. He didn't
understand, and it was delicious!
I laughed. All the same, I observed, I can't see the fun of
making jokes which the person to whom you make them doesn't see
the point of.
Why, that's your own peculiar form of humour, she retorted. I
caught the trick from you.
Perhaps she is right. I have noticed that people are slow in
their appreciation of my witticisms. I must really be a very
dull dog. If she were not fond of me I don't see how a bright
woman like Judith could tolerate my society for half an hour.
I don't think I contribute to the world's humour; but the world's
humour contributes much to my own entertainment, and things which
appear amusing to me do not appeal, when I point them out, to the
risible faculties of another. Every individual, I suppose, like
every civilisation, must have his own standard of humour. If I
were a Roman (instead of an English) Epicurean, I should have
died with laughter at the sight of a fat Christian martyr
scudding round the arena while chased by a hungry lion. At
present I should faint with horror. Indeed, I always feel
tainted with savagery and enjoying a vicarious lust, when I smile
at the oftrepeated tale of the poor tiger in Dore's picture that
hadn't got a Christian. On the other hand, it tickles me
immensely to behold a plethoric commonplace Briton roar himself
purple with impassioned platitude at a political meeting; but I
perceive that all my neighbours take him with the utmost
seriousness. Again, your literary journalist professes to
wriggle in his chair over the humour of Jane Austen; to me she is
the dullest lady that ever faithfully photographed the trivial.
Years ago I happened to be crossing Putney Bridge, in a frock
coat and silk hat, when a passing member of the proletariat dug
his elbows in his comrade's ribs and, quoting a musichall tag of
the period, shouted He's got 'em on! whereupon both burst into
peals of robustious but inane laughter. Now, if I had turned to

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