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 music-hall 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
them, and said, "He would be funnier if I hadn't," and
paraphrased, however wittily, Carlyle's ironical picture of a
nude court of St. James's, they would have punched my head under
the confused idea that I was trying to bamboozle them. Which
brings me to my point of departure, my remark to Judith as to the
futility of jesting to unpercipient ears.
I did not take up her retort.
"And what was the end of the romance?" I asked.
"He borrowed twenty francs of me to pay for the _dejeuner_, and
his _l'annee trente_ delicacy of soul compelled him to blot my
existence forever from his mind.
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