Confessions¹ of a Humorist (O·Henry)

There was a painless stage of incubation that lasted twenty-five years, and then it broke out on me, and people said I was It.

But they called it humor instead of measles².

The employees in the store bought a silver inkstand for the senior partner on his fiftieth birthday. We crowded into his private office to present it. I had been selected for spokesman, and I made a little speech that I had been preparing for a week.

It made a hit. It was full of puns and epigrams and funny twists that brought down the house--which was a very solid one in the wholesale³ hardware line. Old Marlowe himself actually grinned, and the employees took their cue and roared.

My reputation as a humorist dates from half-past nine o'clock on that morning. For weeks afterward⁵ my fellow clerks fanned the flame of my self-esteem. One by one they came to me, saying what an awfully⁶ clever speech that was, old man, and carefully explained to me the point of each one of my jokes.

Gradually I found that I was expected to keep it up. Others might speak sanely⁷ on business matters and the day's topics, but from me something gamesome and airy was required.

I was expected to crack jokes about the crockery and lighten up the granite⁸ ware⁴ with persiflage⁹. I was second bookkeeper, and if I failed to show up a balance sheet without something comic about the footings or could find no cause for laughter in an invoice¹⁰ of plows¹¹, the other clerks were disappointed. By degrees my fame spread, and I became a local "character." Our town was small enough to make this possible. The daily newspaper quoted me. At social gatherings¹² I was indispensable.

I believe I did possess considerable wit and a facility for quick and spontaneous repartee¹³. This gift I cultivated and improved by practice. And the nature of it was kindly¹⁴ and genial¹⁵, not running to sarcasm¹⁶ or offending others. People began to smile when they saw me coming, and by the time we had met I generally had the word ready to broaden the smile into a laugh.