Cream of the jug

Cream of the Jug

Reading edition

An Anthology of Humorous Stories

EDITED BY

GRANT OVERTON

HARPER & BROTHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON 1927

FOREWORD

A good many harsh things are likely to be said about this collection of humorous stories and I may as well get in first by saying a few of them right here. Not all of them are likely to strike any given reader as being humorous; certainly not all of them are humorous in the same sense nor in anything like the same degree. Humor, from the writer's standpoint, can hardly be defined except as a method of presenting material; from a reader's standpoint, as anything and everything conducive to good-natured laughter. Humor may be brief; perhaps is better so; nevertheless I have aimed to include only humorous writing which also tells a fully-rounded story—writing in which the humor is incidental to the story unless you, the reader, find it otherwise.

There is plenty of evidence that I have had further formulas. Some of it is misleading. I did not, for example, consciously select a humorous negro story, a humorous animal story, a humorous Jewish story, and so on. With more truth it can be alleged that I made this book by culling a specimen of the work of this well-known writer of humorous yarns, and that one. Still, there are one or two stories by less well-known writers. And it is perhaps natural in any department to think of a few who are outstanding and to say, "The collection won't be representative without a story by Blank." In the end you match Blank's tale against one by somebody else and are not thunderstruck if Blank's is the better. It is his faculty for being better that has got him his fame.

That there is only one story by a woman is as much of a surprise to me as it can be to anybody. Probably, if my task were perfectly done, there would be not less than three.

I have, however, failed to include only one story which I wished to put in. This failure was due to the author's refusal of permission, for no given reason.

Of course there are hundreds and probably thousands of stories I have not read, and there must be omissions which, apart from the element of individual appraisement, are mistakes. I shall be glad to know about these. But in suggesting them it is fair to ask you to bear in mind that I have been concerned only with American writers or those who, like P. G. Wodehouse, have as it were adopted us and been adopted by us; and that I have dealt almost exclusively with stories of the last two years. I have also avoided in the majority of cases stories already published in book form.

Should this book meet with favor, another collection of the sort is not impossible, and for that I shall value suggestions to improve on the present volume. They should generally be:

Fully-rounded "stories" of usual length.

By Americans; especially by women.

Published in a magazine in 1926 or 1927.

As yet unpublished in book form.

I can think of no other specification except the fundamental one—that the story should have made you laugh, early and often. I hope some of these may do that.

GRANT OVERTON

1 July, 1927

CONTENTS

I'M IN A HURRY William Hazlett Upson

THE CUSTODY OF THE PUMPKIN P. G. Wodehouse

THE MILKY WAY Stewart Edward White

LA BELLA GINA Eleanor Mercein Kelly

CLASSICS IN SLANG: ROBINSON CRUSOE H. C. Witwer

THE PUSHER-IN-THE-FACE F. Scott Fitzgerald

ALMOST A GENTLEMAN Edward Hope

ARABIAN KNIGHTS Octavus Roy Cohen

THE SIXTH MCNALLY Montague Glass

ZONE OF QUIET Ring W. Lardner