Young Men I Have Met
by J. M. Barrie
Genre: Humour
Swearwords: None.
Description: Originally serialised in the Young Man Magazine between January and November 1890, Young Men I Have Met is Barrie’s humorous take on a variety of types.
Swearwords: None.
Description: Originally serialised in the Young Man Magazine between January and November 1890, Young Men I Have Met is Barrie’s humorous take on a variety of types.
Episode Five – The Comic Man
‘Yes, I always answer the persons who write to me about myself or about themselves,’ a literary man once said to me, ‘I answer all correspondents with, of course, the exception of the humorous ones.’
‘And those you answer if they enclose a stamp?’
‘No, not though they enclose a dozen stamps.’
I repeated this conversation to young William Jennings, who is the comic man of our neighbourhood, but it did him no good. William, indeed, is in a desperate way. His witticisms have rotted whatever brain he originally had. In one of the fairy tales the bad girl never opens her mouth but a toad falls from it, and when William is in fettle I think of that girl. Puns are his toads.
You must not think that William is a reprehensible a character as the bad girl of the fairy tale. In many ways he is an amiable, deserving fellow, and even now they have no complaint to make of him at the office. He does his work creditably, I never heard of his stupefying himself with beer, and when let loose he is not a rowdy. But all the time that is his own he wastes in this comic, so called. William’s father, who slips out of the room nowadays as soon as his son enters it, tells me that William lately spent the evenings of three weeks in practising wobbling across the road like a duck. In William’s comic circle this is for the moment the fashion in walking, and now it is a sight to see William at a crossing. The old gentleman says that William worked as hard at acquiring this wobble as if it were a business and he was paid by the piece. It was in his head in the place where his brains ought to be.
‘Is it not an ignoble ambition?’ William’s father said to me, and I could not answer that it struck me otherwise.
William, like too many young gentlemen, is an eager reader of the ‘smart papers,’ and diligently studies their slang. They seem, from his account, to have always one phrase for applying to everything – and probably it is got from music-halls. For some time past the phrase has been ‘good old..,’ and poor William suffers from it badly. When Browning died, ‘Good old Browning,’ said William at once. The influenza came and William took it; ‘Good old influenza,’ he moaned. There is a strike, ‘Good old strike.’ The teapot smashes, ‘Good old teapot.’ ‘Leave the room, you idiot!’ William’s father shrieks when he can stand it no longer. ‘Good old father,’ replies William.
Of course William is a comic singer. I don’t think he frequents music-halls, but the ditties of the Greatest Cad on Earth and the other celebrities of such houses of entertainment, reach him (who can escape from them?), and soon, too soon, William has caught the tune. At the various tea-fights (as he calls them) to which William is invited, he sings comic songs of the inane type by request, and every time he stops for applause it is freely given. His sisters have never been able to decide whether William’s comic powers are a credit to the family or a humiliation and they watch the applauding company suspiciously. William’s jokes darken the household at home; but at a ‘tea fight’, he may, they think, be in his proper sphere. I am afraid the persons who so politely and urgently press William for another song as funny as the last one, are sad hypocrites. ‘How too awfully funny!’ one hears them say aloud, and then to each other ‘Did you ever hear anything so dreadful?’ William’s sisters, unfortunately, have no sense of humour, and so they cannot be quite sure about William. William, however, is at his worst when he is sitting near another of the same. The two will pun by the hour, saying ‘Great Juggins!’ every tenth pun or so. Juggins seems to be driving ‘good old’, out of favour, which is the best that can be said for him.
An excessively comic person who had written parodies of ‘In Memoriam’ and burlesques of ‘Hamlet,’ was once introduced to Carlyle, who eyed him curiously and asked, ‘And when, Mr What’s-your-name, are you to give us the comic Bible?’ There is food for reflection in the question, which I must repeat to William, though, I fear, with no result.
‘Yes, I always answer the persons who write to me about myself or about themselves,’ a literary man once said to me, ‘I answer all correspondents with, of course, the exception of the humorous ones.’
‘And those you answer if they enclose a stamp?’
‘No, not though they enclose a dozen stamps.’
I repeated this conversation to young William Jennings, who is the comic man of our neighbourhood, but it did him no good. William, indeed, is in a desperate way. His witticisms have rotted whatever brain he originally had. In one of the fairy tales the bad girl never opens her mouth but a toad falls from it, and when William is in fettle I think of that girl. Puns are his toads.
You must not think that William is a reprehensible a character as the bad girl of the fairy tale. In many ways he is an amiable, deserving fellow, and even now they have no complaint to make of him at the office. He does his work creditably, I never heard of his stupefying himself with beer, and when let loose he is not a rowdy. But all the time that is his own he wastes in this comic, so called. William’s father, who slips out of the room nowadays as soon as his son enters it, tells me that William lately spent the evenings of three weeks in practising wobbling across the road like a duck. In William’s comic circle this is for the moment the fashion in walking, and now it is a sight to see William at a crossing. The old gentleman says that William worked as hard at acquiring this wobble as if it were a business and he was paid by the piece. It was in his head in the place where his brains ought to be.
‘Is it not an ignoble ambition?’ William’s father said to me, and I could not answer that it struck me otherwise.
William, like too many young gentlemen, is an eager reader of the ‘smart papers,’ and diligently studies their slang. They seem, from his account, to have always one phrase for applying to everything – and probably it is got from music-halls. For some time past the phrase has been ‘good old..,’ and poor William suffers from it badly. When Browning died, ‘Good old Browning,’ said William at once. The influenza came and William took it; ‘Good old influenza,’ he moaned. There is a strike, ‘Good old strike.’ The teapot smashes, ‘Good old teapot.’ ‘Leave the room, you idiot!’ William’s father shrieks when he can stand it no longer. ‘Good old father,’ replies William.
Of course William is a comic singer. I don’t think he frequents music-halls, but the ditties of the Greatest Cad on Earth and the other celebrities of such houses of entertainment, reach him (who can escape from them?), and soon, too soon, William has caught the tune. At the various tea-fights (as he calls them) to which William is invited, he sings comic songs of the inane type by request, and every time he stops for applause it is freely given. His sisters have never been able to decide whether William’s comic powers are a credit to the family or a humiliation and they watch the applauding company suspiciously. William’s jokes darken the household at home; but at a ‘tea fight’, he may, they think, be in his proper sphere. I am afraid the persons who so politely and urgently press William for another song as funny as the last one, are sad hypocrites. ‘How too awfully funny!’ one hears them say aloud, and then to each other ‘Did you ever hear anything so dreadful?’ William’s sisters, unfortunately, have no sense of humour, and so they cannot be quite sure about William. William, however, is at his worst when he is sitting near another of the same. The two will pun by the hour, saying ‘Great Juggins!’ every tenth pun or so. Juggins seems to be driving ‘good old’, out of favour, which is the best that can be said for him.
An excessively comic person who had written parodies of ‘In Memoriam’ and burlesques of ‘Hamlet,’ was once introduced to Carlyle, who eyed him curiously and asked, ‘And when, Mr What’s-your-name, are you to give us the comic Bible?’ There is food for reflection in the question, which I must repeat to William, though, I fear, with no result.
About the Author
J. M. Barrie (1860-1937) is of course best known for his play Peter Pan. As well as being a dramatist, he was famous in his own day for fiction. A graduate of Edinburgh University, he cut his teeth in journalism in Nottingham and London. Find out more about him at the unco online bookstore.