Once upon a time there was a Young Man of Talent, whose stories were so good that the editor of the paper on which he was employed heard the Professional Humorist, who had been attached to the paper for twenty-eight years, ask the city editor, “what the deuce the old man meant by loading up the Sunday supplement with all that stuff;” and the very next night the Young Man asked if he might sign his name to his special articles in the Sunday paper. Now this was a privilege which had never been accorded to anybody who knew how to write, and the editor was[Pg 224] afraid to make an exception in favor of the Young Man for fear of bringing down upon his own head the wrath of the prize-fighters, skirt-dancers, prominent citizens, and other windbags who had always regarded signed articles as their special prerogative.

So he made answer that the signature was usually considered a badge of shame. But the Young Man persisted in his demand until the editor was forced to give way, and the following Sunday the eyes of the Professional Humorist fell upon an article which bore the signature of the Young Man of Talent, and which was sandwiched in between a graphic description of “How I Slugged McGonegal’s Unknown,” by Rocksey McIntyre, and “The Spontaneity of Medi?val Art,” by Professor Stuffe.

A jealous, angry light gleamed in the eyes of the Professional Humorist, and he swore an awful oath to be revenged[Pg 225] on the rival who had come into the field with a variety of humor that would inevitably put an end to his own calling—that of manufacturing “crisp paragraphs”—which he had pursued without interruption for more than a quarter of a century.

Now the Professional Humorist belonged to the “Association of Old-time Funny Men,” to which nobody could gain admittance who was under fifty-five years of age or who had ever been guilty of an original piece of humor.

When one of the order wrote a crisp paragraph about a door being not a door when it happened to be ajar, it would become the duty of some fellow-member to quote it with the prefix: “Billy Jaggs of the Blankburgh Banner says—” and add some refined pleasantry of this sort: “Billy’s mouth is usually ajar when the whisky-jug goes round. How is that for high, Jaggsey, old boy?” and then the[Pg 226] crisp paragraph would be “passed along” after the fashion prevalent in the old days when American humor was struggling for popular recognition.

So the Professional Humorist communicated with his fellow funny men, and told them that unless concerted measures were taken the old-fashioned crisp paragraphs would be relegated to the obscurity shared by other features of ante-bellum journalism; and, the funny men becoming alarmed, a general convention of the order was promptly called and as quickly assembled.

At this gathering of the comic writers various means whereby the Young Man of Talent should be destroyed were discussed.

“It would be better,” said a hoary and solemn humorist, whose calling was indicated by a cane made in imitation of a length of stovepipe, with a handle of goat’s horn, &l............