Best Short Stories

Excerpt

There is a wide difference of opinion, even among the most discriminating critics, as to what constitutes the point of a good joke.  Aside from varying temperaments, this is largely due to one’s experience with life in general.  Or intimate acquaintance with certain phases of life gives us a subtler appreciation of certain niceties, which would be lost upon those who have not traveled over that particular path.  The doctor, the lawyer, the family man, and the soldier, each have their minds sensitized to their own fields of thought.  Human nature, however, works according to universal laws, and a really first-class joke strikes home to the majority.