by Ruskin Bond
The Rupa
Laughter Omnibus
By the same author:
Angry River
A Little Night Music
A Long Walk for Bina
Hanuman to the Rescue
Ghost Stories from the Raj
Strange Men, Strange Places
The India I Love
Tales and Legends from India
The Blue Umbrella
Ruskin Bond's Children's Omnibus
The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-I
The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-II
The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-III
Rupa Book of Great Animal Stories
The Rupa Book of True Tales of Mystery and Adventure
The Rupa Book of Ruskin Bond's Himalayan Tales
The Rupa Book of Great Suspense Stories
The Rupa Laughter Omnibus
The Rupa Book of Scary Stories
The Rupa Book of Haunted Houses
The Rupa Book of Travellers' Tales
The Rupa Book of Great Crime Stories
The Rupa Book of Nightmare Tales
The Rupa Book of Shikar Stories
The Rupa Book of Love Stories
The Rupa Book of Wicked Stories
The Rupa Book of Heartwarming Stories
The Rupa Book of Thrills and Spills
The Rupa
Laughter Omnibus
Edited by
Ruskin Bond
There was an old man at Landour
Who wanted young folk to laugh more;
So he cooked up this book,
And with laughter they shook
As they rolled down the hill to Rajpore.
Copyright © Rupa & Co., 2003
Selection and introduction copyright © Ruskin Bond 2003
First Published 2003
This edition 2010
Published by
7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj
New Delhi 110 002
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright publishers.
Contents
Introduction
Cheese
By Jerome K. Jerome
Ong to Londing
A Question
The Conjurer's Revenge
By Stephen Leacock
Llanfairpwllgwyngillgogerchwyrndrobwllllandysiliogogogoch
By Robert Lynd
The Kidnapping of Major Mulvaney
By C.A. Kincaid
Money
By Richard Armour
Cricket at Dingley Dell
By Charles Dickens
Cricket—Field Placings
By Ruskin Bond
The Cricket Match
By A.G. Macdonnel
Major Canamus
By A.G. Shirreff
George and Ranji
By Ruskin Bond
The Zigzag Walk
By Ruskin Bond
The Decline of the Drama
By Stephen Leacock
Pause
By Pierre Marivaux
Sigh No More, Ladies
By Thomas Percy
Drunkards of Distinction
Company
By Aimor A. Dickson
Wimpole's Woe
By Louis Golding
My Failed Omelettes—and Other Disasters
By Ruskin Bond
Song for a Beetle in a Goldfish Bowl
By Ruskin Bond
The Inn and the Dog
By Jerome K. Jerome
The Ghost Ship
By Richard Middleton
About John
By Hilaire Belloc
Henry King
By Hilaire Belloc
Matilda
By Hilaire Belloc
The Dinner-Party
By E.V. Lucas
The Faith Cure
By A.G. Shirreff
A Comedy in Capricorn
By Morley Roberts
Ping Pong & Ruskin Bond
By Victor Banerjee
The Music Man
By Vijay N. Shankar
In Praise of the Sausage
By Ruskin Bond
Last Tango in the Far Pavilions
By Bill Aitken
Literacy Lapses
Verses: From the Sanskrit
By A.G. Shirreff
Introduction
Dear Reader,
The pen (we are told) is mightier than the sword; I'm not sure about that, but it's certainly easier to write with….
Frankly, given a choice of writing weapons, I would always choose the pen in preference to the typewriter, the word-processor, the tape-recorder, or the secretary. On one occasion I spent over an hour dictating to a tape-recorder only to discover later that I had forgotten to switch it on. A word-processor took one of my stories and vanished with it forever. A secretary took one of my best friends and vanished with him forever.
An expensive pen may occasionally vanish, depending on the company you keep, but an inexpensive ball-point seldom lets me down. I keep a bunch of these handy: some on my desk, two or three in my coat pockets, one under my pillow, one near the telephone, a couple in convenient flower-pots (I get the occasional bright idea while gardening), and one in the kitchen just in case I decide to write that cookery book which is going to make my fortune. Pens accompany me on long walks. Computers don't, and secretaries won't.
In compiling this collection of humorous stories, sketches, and verse, I have enjoyed myself immensely. I have been able to revive a few old favourites, discover or re-discover others, and give you, my dear reader, something to smile or laugh at on a gloomy or rainy day.
There are basically three kinds of humour: wit, satire, comedy. The wit (in the manner of Wilde, Shaw, etc) is funny at the expense of other people; the satirist is funny at the expense of the world; the comedian is funny at his own expense, or he sees the funny side of human existence.
Wit and satire are inclined to fade, just as the subjects of their barbs fade away, lose their immediacy and relevance. Great comedy is immortal. Shakespeare's Falstaff and Dickens's Mr. Micawber never cease to enchant. These and others like them are larger than life, just as Chaplin's tramp is their visual equivalent: converting human frailty into something laughable, loveable. The perfect example of a writer able to laugh at his own foibles and follies is Jerome K. Jerome, in his classic, Three Men In A Boat, and its sequel, Three Men On The Bummel. Gifted humourists in their different ways were Stephen Leacock, Morley Roberts, Hilaire Belloc, P.G. Wodehouse. They have made the world a better place, simply by making us laugh at them, with them, and at ourselves.
I am grateful to a few friends for contributing to this anthology: Vijay N. Shankar, a newspaper editor who also writes fiction; the actor Victor Banerjee, who takes a mischievous look at some of your editor's hidden talents; and Bill Aitken, the well-known travel writer.
The poems by A.G. Shirreff appear here for the first time since their original, unheralded publication in 1918. It always gives me pleasure to re-discover a forgotten or neglected writer whose work deserves to be read again.
Kipling was only occasionally humorous, but in one of his stories he said that in order to survive in India you needed a strong sense of humour. I would go further and say that in order to survive anywhere in today's world, you need to have a pretty good sense of humour.
May this book help you to look at the funny side of life. And as Dr. Johnson said, "Laugh and be w
ell!"
Landour, Mussoorie Ruskin Bond
19 May, 2003
Cheese
BY JEROME K. JEROME
There is too much odour about cheese. I remember a friend of mine buying a couple of cheeses at Liverpool. Splendid cheeses they were, ripe and mellow, and with a two hundred horse-power scent about them that might have been warranted to carry three miles, and knock a man over at two hundred yards. I was in Liverpool at the time, and my friend said that if I didn't mind he would get me to take them back with me to London, as he should not be coming up for a day or two himself, and he did not think the cheeses ought to be kept much longer.
'Oh, with pleasure, dear boy,' I replied, 'with pleasure.'
I called for the cheeses, and took them away in a cab. It was a ramshackle affair, dragged along by a knock-kneed, broken-winded somnambulist, which his owner, in a moment of enthusiasm during conversation, referred to as a horse. I put the cheeses on the top, and we started off at a shamble that would have done credit to the swiftest steam-roller ever built, and all went merry as a funeral bell, until we turned the corner. There, the wind carried a whiff from the cheeses full on to our steed. It woke him up, and, with a snort of terror, he dashed off at three miles an hour. The wind still blew in his direction, and before we reached the end of the street he was laying himself out at the rate of nearly four miles an hour, leaving the cripples and stout old ladies nowhere.
It took two porters as well as the driver to hold him at the station; and I do not think they would have done it, even then, had not one of the men had the presence of mind to put a handkerchief over his nose, and to light a bit of brown paper.
I took my ticket, and marched proudly up the platform, with my cheeses, the people falling back respectfully on either side. The train was crowded, and I had to get into a carriage where there were already seven other people. One crusty old gentleman objected, but I got in, notwithstanding; and, putting my cheeses upon the rack, squeezed down with a pleasant smile, and said it was a warm day. A few moments passed, and then the old gentleman began to fidget.
'Very close in here,' he said.
'Quite oppressive,' said the man next him.
And then they both began sniffing, and, at the third sniff they caught it right on the chest, and rose up without another word and went out. And then a stout lady got up, and said it was disgraceful that a respectable married woman should be harried about in this way, and gathered up a bag and eight parcels and went. The remaining four passengers sat on for a while, until a solemn looking man in the corner who, from his dress and general appearance, seemed to belong to the undertaker class, said it put him in mind of a dead baby; and the other three passengers tried to get out of the door at the same time, and hurt themselves.
I smiled at the gentleman in black, and said I thought we were going to have the carriage to ourselves; and he laughed pleasantly, and said that some people made such a fuss over a little thing. But even he grew strangely depressed after we had started, and so, when we reached Crewe, I asked him to come and have a drink. He accepted, and we forced our way into the buffet, where we yelled, and stamped, and waved our umbrellas for a quarter of an hour; and then a young lady came and asked us if we wanted anything.
'What's yours?' I said, turning to my friend.
'I'll have half-a-crown's worth of brandy, neat, if you please, miss,' he responded.
And he went off quietly after he had drunk it and got into another carriage, which I thought mean.
From Crewe I had the compartment to myself, though the train was crowded. As we drew up at the different stations, the people, seeing my empty carriage, would rush for it. 'Here y'are, Maria; come along, plenty of room.' 'All right, Tom; we'll get in here,' they would shout. And they would run along, carrying heavy bags, and fight round the door to get in first. And one would open the door and mount the steps, and stagger back into the arms of the man behind him; and they would all come and have a sniff, and then drop off and squeeze into other carriages, or pay the difference and go first.
From Euston, I took the cheeses down to my friend's house. When his wife came into the room she smelt round for an instant. Then she said:
'What is it? Tell me the worst.'
I said:
'It's cheeses. Tom bought them in Liverpool, and asked me to bring them up with me.'
And I added that I hoped she understood that it had nothing to do with me; and she said that she was sure of that, but that she would speak to Tom about it when he came back.
My friend was detained in Liverpool longer than he expected and, three days later, as he hadn't returned home, his wife called on me. She said:
'What did Tom say about those cheeses?'
I replied that he had directed they were to be kept in a moist place, and that nobody was to touch them.
She said:
'Nobody's likely to touch them. Had he smelt them?'
I thought he had, and added that he seemed greatly attached to them.
'You think he would be upset', she queried, 'if I gave a man a sovereign to take them away and bury them?'
I answered that I thought that he would never smile again.
An idea struck her. She said:
'Do you mind keeping them for him? Let me send them round to you.'
'Madam,' I replied, 'for myself I like the smell of cheese, and the journey the other day with them from Liverpool I shall ever look back upon as a happy ending to a pleasant holiday. But, in this world, we must consider others. The lady under whose roof I have the honour of residing is a widow, and, for all I know, possibly an orphan too. She has a strong, I may say, an eloquent, objection to being what she terms "put upon". The presence of your husband's cheeses in her house she would, I instinctively feel, regard as a "put upon"; and it shall never be said that I put upon the widow and the orphan.'
'Very well, then,' said my friend's wife, rising, 'all I have to say is, that I shall take the children and go to a hotel until those cheeses are eaten. I decline to live any longer in the same house with them.'
She kept her word, leaving the place in charge of the charwoman, who, when asked if she could stand the smell, replied, 'What smell?" and who, when taken close to the cheeses and told to sniff hard, said she could detect a faint odour of melons. It was argued from this that little injury could result to the woman from the atmosphere, and she was left.
The hotel bill came to fifteen guineas; and my friend, after reckoning everything up, found that the cheeses had cost him eight-and-sixpence a pound. He said he dearly loved a bit of cheese, but it was beyond his means; so he determined to get rid of them. He threw them into the canal; but had to fish them out again, as the bargemen complained. They said it made them feel quite faint. And, after that, he took them one dark night and left them in the parish mortuary. But the coroner discovered them, and made a fearful fuss.
He said it was a plot to deprive him of his living by waking up the corpses.
My friend got rid of them, at last, by taking them down to a seaside town, and burying them on the beach. It gained the place quite a reputation. Visitors said they had never noticed before how strong the air was, and weak-chested and consumptive people used to throng there for years afterwards.
From Three Men In A Boat
Ong to Londing
"Parding Mrs. Harding,
Is my kitting in your garding,
Gnawing of a mutting-bone?"
"No, he's gone to Londing."
"How many miles to Londing?
Eleving? I thought it was only seving.
Heavings! What a long way from home!"
Recalled from an old music-hall song
A Question
One day Soshi was walking on the bank of a river with a friend. "How delightfully the fishes are enjoying themselves in the water !" exclaimed Soshi. His friend said : "You are not a fish; how do you know that the fishes are enjoying themselves?" "You are not myself," returned Soshi; "how do you know that I do not know
that the fishes are enjoying themselves?"
From The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura
The Conjurer's Revenge
BY STEPHEN LEACOCK
'Now, ladies and gentlemen,' said the conjurer, 'having shown you that the cloth is absolutely empty, I will proceed to take from it a bowl of goldfish. Presto!'
All round the hall people were saying, 'Oh, how wonderful! How does he do it?'
But the Quick Man on the front seat said in a big whisper to the people near him, 'He—had—it—up—his—sleeve.'
Then the people nodded brightly at the Quick Man and said, 'Oh, of course;' and everybody whispered round the hall, 'He—had—it—up—his—sleeve.'
'My next trick,' said the conjurer, 'is the famous Hindustani rings. You will notice that the rings are apparently separate; at a blow they all join (clang, clang, clang)—Presto!'
There was a general buzz of stupefaction till the Quick Man was heard to whisper, 'He—must—have—had—another—lot—up—his—sleeve.'
Again everybody nodded and whispered, 'The—rings—were—up—his—sleeve.'
The brow of the conjurer was clouded with a gathering frown. 'I will now,' he continued, 'show you a most amusing trick by which I am enabled to take any number of eggs from a hat. Will some gentleman kindly lend me his hat? Ah, thank you—Presto!'
He extracted seventeen eggs, and for thirty-five seconds the audience began to think that he was wonderful. Then the Quick Man whispered along the front bench, 'He—has—a—hen—up—his—sleeve,' and all the people whispered it on. 'He—has—a—lot—of—hens—up—his—sleeve.'
The egg trick was ruined.
It went on like that all through. It transpired from the whispers of the Quick Man that the conjurer must have concealed up his sleeve, in addition to the rings, hens, and fish, several packs of cards, a loaf of bread, a doll's cradle, a live guinea-pig, a fifty-cent piece, and a rocking-chair.
The reputation of the conjurer was rapidly sinking below zero. At the close of the evening he rallied for a final effort.
'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, 'I will present to you in conclusion, the famous Japanese trick recently invented by the natives of Tipperary. Will you, sir,' he continued, turning towards the Quick Man, 'will you kindly hand me your gold watch?'