REPARTEE.

Many Laugh-Provoking Examples.

Eschines Greek Jokes translated by Melville D. Landon, A.M. (Eli Perkins).

schines,

We find much splendid repartee in the writings of Diogenes, Plato and Aristippus. It is hard to translate it, and not have it lose its force, but I give below a free translation of some of the best repartee in the old Greek:

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One day, the tyrant Dioysius asked Aristippus, a pupil of Socrates, but a cringing toady to the King, Why do you philosophers always come to the rich, while the rich never, never return your calls?"

"Because," said Aristippus, "we philosophers want money which the rich can give us, but the rich want brains which we can't give them, even if they do return our visits."

Croesus, a rich but illiterate Athenian, brought his stupid son to Aristippus to be educated.

"How much will you charge to make my boy a scholar?" he asked.

"How much?" mused Aristippus, as he put his hand on the boy's low forehead. "How much? Why about five hundred

drachmas."

"Five hundred drachmas!" exclaimed Croesus. 66 that is too dear. Why with that I could buy a slave."

Why,

"Then go and buy a slave," said Aristippus, "and you'll

have twins, you'll have a pair of them."

"Bat how will it benefit my son five hundred drachmas worth?" asked the shoddy Greek.

"Why, if he gets no other good when he goes to the theater you can tell your blockhead boy from the wooden benches."* One day when Dionysius asked Aristippus why he came to him so much for?

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Why, I come to exchange something which I have for something which you have."

"What is that?"

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Why, I come to trade brains for money."

One Greek writer, Æschines, says Aristippus said "When I want wisdom I go to Socrates, but when I want money, I come to you."

Alex. Stephens' Repartee.

A. H. Stephens is said to weigh but seventy-four pounds; yet he was always considered in the South as a man of weight. Mr. Stephens once severely worsted a gigantic Western opponent in debate.

The big fellow, looking down on Stephens, burst out, "You! -why, I could swallow you-whole!"

66 If you did," answered the latter, "you would have more brains in your bowels than ever you had in your head."

Oscar Wilde Demolished.

Oscar, the long haired esthete, was delivering himself of an eloquent tirade against the invasion of the sacred domain of art by the meaner herd of trades-people and miscellaneous nobodies, and finally rising to an Alpine height of scorn, ex claimed,

"Ay, all of you here are Philistines-mere Philistines!"

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Yes," said an old gentleman, softly, "we are Philistines, and I suppose that is why we are being assaulted with the jawbone of an ass."

*The literal Greek reply was, "He will not be one stone setting on an other." The seats of the Athenian theater were of stone.

Gen. Carey Worsted.

"You can not keep me down," shouted Gen. Sam Carey, the great Ohio orator, at a public meeting; "though I may be pressed below the waves I rise again; you will find that I come to the surface, gentlemen."

"Yes," said an old whaler in the audience, "you come to the surface to blow."

Very Gentle Repartee.

Eli Perkins.

Oliver Wendell Holmes and John G. Saxe were once talking about brain fever.

"I once had a very severe attack of brain fever myself," said Mr. Saxe.

"How could you have brain fever?" asked Mr. Holmes, smiling. "It is only strong brains that have brain fever." "How did you find that out?" asked Saxe.

Scotch Repartee.

A Scotchman complained that he had got a ringing in his head.

"Do ye ken the reason o' that?" asked his friend.

"No."

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"I'll tell ye-it's because it's empty."

"And ha'e ye never a ringing in your head?" asked the other.

"No, never. “And do

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ye ken the reason?- because it's cracked.'

"

What is Repartee?

Melville D. Landon, A. M.

Repartee is a sudden flash. It is turning a current of thought in an opposite direction. It is the upsetting of a train of thought. It is really deforming a thought. Repartee

is a case where one speaker makes a piain statement, aimed in a certain direction, which a hearer collides with and reverses so as to shoot straight back at the speaker.

"What I want," said a pompous orator, aiming at his antagonist, "is good common sense."

"Exactly," was the whispered reply, "that's just what you

need."

Repartee is often very unkind, but its unkindness is excusa ble when the person indulging in it has been attacked. For instance, Abernethey, the famous surgeon, swore violently at a poor Irish paver who had piled some paving-stones on the Doctor's sidewalk.

"Remove them! away with them!" screamed Abernethy; with an oath.

"But where shall I take them to?" asked Pat.

"To hell with them!" exclaimed the Doctor.

"Hadn't I better take them to heaven? Sure, and they'd be more out of your honor's way there," said Pat, as he leaned on his spade.

An instance of unkind repartee is recorded of Charles Lamb:

One day a loving mother brought her beautiful goldenhaired baby into dinner in her armas. She was very proud of her sweet babe, and, holding it up with pride and joy in her eyes, she said:

"Mr. Lamb, how do you like babies?"

"I like 'em boiled, madam -- boiled!"

Of course that mother never loved Mr. Lamb after that. The finest piece of repartee in the English language is the instance where two Irishmen were walking under the gibbet of Newgate. Looking up at the gibbet, one of them remarked: "Ah, Pat, where would you be if the gibbet had done its duty?"

"Faith, Flannagan," said Pat, "and I'd be walking Lon don-all alone!”