: 'How cold it is, Mr. Choate.' 'Well, it is
not absolutely tropical,' he replied, with a most mirthful emphasis."

And do you recollect the only time that Wordsworth was _really_ witty?
He told the story himself at a dinner. "Gentlemen, I never was really
witty but once in my life." Of course there was a general call for the
bright but solitary instance. And the contemplative bard continued:
"Well, gentlemen, I was standing at the door of my cottage on Rydal
Mount, one fine summer morning, and a laborer said to me: 'Sir, have you
seen my wife go by this way?' And I replied: 'My good man, I did not
know until this moment that you _had_ a wife!'"

He paused; the company waited for the promised witticism, but
discovering that he had finished, burst into a long and hearty roar,
which the old gentleman accepted complacently as a tribute to his
brilliancy.

The wit of women is like the airy froth of champagne, or the witching
iridescence of the soap-bubble, blown for a moment's sport. The sparkle,
the life, the fascinating foam, the gay tints vanish with the occasion,
because there is no listening Boswell with unfailing memory and
capacious note-book to preserve them.

Then, unlike men, women do not write out their impromptus beforehand and
carefully hoard them for the publisher--and posterity!

* * * * *

And now, dear friends, a cordial _au revoir_.

My heartiest thanks to the women who have so generously allowed me to
ransack their treasuries, filching here and there as I chose, always
modestly declaiming against the existence of wit in what they had
written.

To various publishers in New York and Boston, who have been most
courteous and liberal, credit is given elsewhere.

Touched by the occasion, I "drop into" doggerel:

If you pronounce this book not funny,
And wish you hadn't spent your money,
There soon will be a general rumor
That you're no judge of Wit or Humor.

INDEX.

PAGE.

INTRODUCTION iii.

CONTENTS v.

DEDICATION vii.

ARGUMENT ix.

PROEM xi.