Prank

“ I don't think the fellows who played that prank really wanted to do anything more than have some fun at our expense. Perhaps they were some of our friends, and laughed secretly while they pretended to join in the scramble of a hunt. So I guess that after all Lef Seller and his crowd didn't happen to be in this game," remarked Frank.
"No, because he never stops at anything when he tries to get even with a fellow. ”

“ She put down her petticoats easy and cool.
And ten minutes after she did it again,
Though knowing I look'd and saw it quite plain;
Come - there was a prank for a delicate virgin,
Who thought an old bachelor wanting some urging! ”

“ Handsomebody was standing in the doorway. I had never seen her with so high a colour.
"You will remain in that chair," she commanded, "until tea time. Do not loll on the bed. And you may rest assured that I shall leave no stone unturned till I have discovered every detail of this prank. It is at such times as these that I regret ever having undertaken the charge of three such unruly boys. It is only the high regard in which I hold your father that makes it tolerable. I hope you will take advantage of your solitude to review thoroughly your past." ”

“ I never once got a thrashing for a silly puerile prank, and that an incalculable blessing was denied me in this way, which no grammatical treat could ever take the place of, is something that more than one well-educated gentleman can testify to. ”

“ Hearing that Number-Nip had practised this unlucky prank, she immediately guessed the kind intention of the spirit, and could not refrain from bursting out into a loud laugh—a liberty which Stephen would have severely resented in his more manful mood. But now he suffered her unseasonable levity to pass unchastised, and only enquired anxiously after the goat and kids. This tickled his wife’s diaphragm still more, for she perceived the careful house-keeper had been prying into every corner. ‘What dost thou trouble thyself about my cattle for?’ said she ”

“ Sometimes the same object may be comical from both the points of view which we have specified; this is always true, as we shall see, in the most highly developed comedy. For example, we may laugh at the child's prank because it is so absurd from the point of view of our grown-up expectations as to reasonable conduct, and at the same time, taking the part of the child, rejoice at the momentary relief from them which it offers us. ”

“ To mention but one prank—was it not a piece of true tomfoolery that, when the procession of poor scholars, singing for alms about the streets, were just beginning their usual begging hymn under the windows of the best religious families on the opposite side of the street, and just as they had struck their key-note and were going to start off with their chorus, Leibgeber, to begin with, made his boar-hound “Saufinder” (he couldn’t live without a big dog) look out of window with a fashionable lady’s night-cap on his head? ”

“ CHAPTER III A STRANGE PROPOSITION Perhaps some of my readers may not know what the contrivance known as a "tic-tac" is like. Those of you who have made them, of course, do not need to be told. If you ever put them on any person's window, I hope you selected a house where there were only boys and girls or young people to be startled by the tic-tac. It is no joke, though at first it may seem like one, to scare an old person with the affair. So if any boy or girl makes a tic-tac after the description given here, I trust he or she will be careful on whom the prank is played. ”

“ Incredible as it may seem to those who have not looked into the subject, it is a fact that there are boys and girls—especially girls—who take a morbid delight in playing pranks that will astound and perplex their elders. ”

“ Some of the little folks we watch grow up to be young women, and occasionally one of them gets nervous, what we call hysterical, and then that girl will begin to play all sorts of pranks,--to lie and cheat, perhaps, in the most unaccountable way, so that she might seem to a minister a good example of total depravity. ”

“ These men had a special dance of their own which was always a feature of the scene, and in addition they used to play what pranks they would, rushing about, making fun of others, climbing into boxes and then hauling others in, or dropping them out—such pranks and intrigué funniments as give life to a scene of the kind. ”

“ The mischievous pranks he had hitherto played had been more the result of violent and uncontrolled spirits,—the hasty flashings of an impetuous temper, than any actual wish to commit crime: they had been performed in the day, in the sight of the injured; but he was now going to steal out like a thief in the night, to commit a vile and premeditated act of malice.
The better feelings of his heart strongly urged him to recede; but the idea of being laughed at by his wicked companion overcame the scruples of conscience, when he heard his rough voice grumble beneath the window. ”

“ The lover of teasing naturally seeks such victims as are defenceless against him, especially those who are physically weak or so situated as to be incapable of revenge. Yet there are ways of annoying the strong and capable. A good-natured teacher is apt to be the subject of his pupils’ pranks, though in this case they seldom222 take the form of physical assaults. ”

“ It is true that some women were frightened, and, no doubt, frightened badly, at the pranks played that night. We meant to frighten the men; if necessary we should have killed them—the leaders—but never to frighten the women. ”

“ The pranks formerly played in Ireland on Allhallow-eve, were innumerable. The devil was supposed to be at large on that night, and permitted to make what prey he could among the human species, by bringing them together. ”

“ It is more often found, however, in a modified [126] creed which admits that the presence of this perverse element in existence does not prove that all life is of the same piece; that the mad pranks are those of destiny’s underlings, dressed in a little brief authority, and not perpetrated by the ruler of the universe. ”

“ First they advanced, bowed and retired, then they repeated what they had done before, and again, each time getting faster and faster in their movements, changing their bows into pirouettes, craning their long necks and making such antics as they went through the figures of their dance, and replacing their dignity with such grotesqueness, as to make their large audience shake with laughter, they themselves keeping throughout all their grotesque measures a solemn air, which only seemed to heighten the effect of their antics. ”

“ Punch!' And then, 'Is it the baker?' 'No, Mr. Punch!' 'Who is it then?' (this in a squeak trembling with emotion and terror) ; and then the full, loud reply, booming like a judgement-bell, 'It is the Devil come to take you down to Hell,' and the form of Punch, with kicking legs, sunken in epilepsy on the floor,—all this was solemn and exquisite to me beyond words. I was not amused—I was deeply moved and exhilarated, 'purged', as the old phrase hath it, 'with pity and terror'. ”

“ Under the excitement of ineffable and horrid joy, they whip him round the circle, that he may expose each part of his body to the flame, while the other part is fanned by the cool air, that he may thus undergo the literal operation of slow roasting. During this abhorrent process, the children fill the circle in convulsions of laughter; and the women begin to thrust their burning torches into his body, lacerating the quick of the flesh, that the flame may inflict more exquisite anguish. ”

“ Punch has a row with Judy and knocks her out. (Laughter.) Various well-intentioned and benignant fools look in on Punch to pass the time of day, and get—very properly—knocked out for their pains. (Loud and prolonged laughter.) This is followed by the side-splitting incident in which a handy clown not only eludes the thirsty bludgeon, but surreptitiously steals the inevitable sausages. ”

“ Like all other teasing, a scornful manner results from a feeling of superiority, and is always calculated to depreciate its object. When serious, such scornful behaviour constitutes a challenge to actual combat, but when playful it becomes the sort of teasing in which the perpetrator enjoys annoying others. The gesture which naturally accompanies it is pointing with the finger, and children usually add laughter. Even dogs understand this laughter, as their half-angry, half-depressed demeanour well proves. ”

“ Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and in manners; it is the manner in which the mob express their silly joy at silly things; and they call it being merry. In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter. ”

“ But we! we live all the while. If we’ve a mind to it, we rejoice in the night—we sleep when we will—live whilst we may. Life’s but for a few flitting years at best. These others are so mad they think us mad who know them mad.... If we are mad——”
He stopped a waiter who passed with a tray of tumblers filled with absinthe. His hand shook so that he spilled some liquor as he raised a glass:
“If we are mad, then here’s to madness!”
They roared with laughter, banged their fists upon the board, raised their glasses and drank with him. ”

“ One day, when a very good friend was visiting me, I thought I would begin on my course of depravity. The first lesson would be in swearing. When an opportunity presented itself, I uttered a word that I thought was strong enough for an amateur to begin on. It stuck in my throat and nearly choked me. My friend laughed and looked both amused and ashamed. Reader, if you have lived to maturity and never indulged in profanity, you can’t imagine how awkward it will be for you to turn out your first piece of swearing. You can’t do it justice. ”

“ The natural offset of terror is ridicule. And we have noted examples among our orators, who have on conspicuous occasions handled and controlled, and, best of all, converted a malignant mob, by superior manhood, and by a wit which disconcerted, and at last delighted the ringleaders. What can a poor truckman who is hired to groan and to hiss do, when the orator shakes him into convulsions of laughter so that he [Pg 130] cannot throw his egg? If a good story will not answer, still milder remedies sometimes serve to disperse a mob. ”

“ He shouted, "Enough of this!" like men shout in the tumult of a riot, with a red face and starting eyes; then, as if swept away before another burst of laughter, he disappeared in a flash out of three looking-glasses, vanished suddenly from before her. For a time the woman gasped and laughed at no one in the luminous stillness of the empty room. ”

“ A common and simple variety of this nervous laughter is the spasmodic outburst that often succeeds a shock of fear. A child will laugh after being frightened by a dog; a woman often breaks out into a nervous laugh after a short but distinctly shaking experience of fear, e.g., in a carriage behind a runaway horse, or in a boat which has nearly capsized. And it does not seem that such laughter is preceded by a perception of the absurdity of the fear, or of any similar mode of consciousness; it looks like a kind of physiological reaction after the fear. ”

“ It is unutterably moving to see how his haggard canine cheek and the corners of his mouth quiver and jerk to the excitement of the teasing, how the dusky mien of the dumb creature takes on the physiognomic expression of human laughter, or how a troubled, helpless, and melancholy reflection of this appears and vanishes again to give way to the stigmata of fear and embarrassment, and then how it once more makes its wry appearance. ”

“ The comic value of the man in a rage depends too in part on this circumstance. All appearances of disorder where order is counted on, as in dress, are apt to provoke a smile of amusement. A squad of soldiers marching out of time, or out of line, is a recognised stimulus to laughter. Even the sight of a room turned upside down for a cleaning, or of the confusion of a dinner-table after a meal, takes on something of this amusing aspect of the disorderly. ”

“ Five circus clowns dying this year, morning newspapers told their lives, how each one horizontal in a last gesture of hands arranged by an undertaker, shook thousands into convulsions of laughter from behind rouge-red lips and powder-white face. ”

“ In this note of warlike challenge we have a point of kinship with the “crowing” laughter of the victor. Yet it is doubtful whether a child at this early age reaches the {205} mental attitude of a mocking contempt. Preyer tells us that he has never observed scornful laughter within the first four years.129
When the consciousness of the unruly in these “high jinks” becomes distinct and begins to be oppressive, the laughter will be less boisterous and express more of playful pretence. The child learns to be satisfied with making a feint to rebel, with a make-believe unruliness. ”

“ They came laughing, supercilious, tolerant, contemptuous, pitying the inanity of those they held less strongly-minded than themselves who should be taken in by so apparent, glaring and monstrous a fake. They came because it was the rage, the thing to do, quite the thing to do, quite a necessary part of the summer's itinerary. But that they, should they have been sick, would ever have dreamed of coming there was too perfectly ridiculous an idea for words. How strange a thing is the human animal! ”

“ And after brandy, taken in sufficient quantity, it says, "Now, come, fool, grin and tumble, that your fellow-men may laugh—drivel in folly, and splutter in senseless sounds, and show what a helpless ninny is poor man whose wit and will are drowned, like kittens, side by side, in half an inch of alcohol." ”

“ This dislike of being made the object of a facetious attention holds good of other savages as well. A writer tells us that a common fireside amusement among certain savages is to tease the women till they become angry, which always produces great merriment. The teasing, it is added, is of a rough and not very decent kind.173 Further evidence of this distaste for the douche of a voluble laughter is supplied by the curious ordeals of the Greenlanders, to be spoken of presently. ”