Eh?"
"What do you think, Mr. Banneker?" asked Severance.
"It's worth trying," decided Banneker after thought. "You don't think
so, do you, Pop?"
"Oh, go ahead!" returned Edmonds, spewing forth a mouthful of smoke as
if to expel a bad taste. "What's larceny among friends?"
"But we're not taking anything of value, since there's no copyright and
any one can grab it," pointed out the smooth Severance.
Thus there entered into the high-tension atmosphere of the
sensationalized Patriot the relaxing quality of humor. Under the
ingenuous and acquisitive Sheffer, whose twins achieved immediate
popularity, it developed along other lines. Sheffer--who knew what makes
business men laugh--pinned his simple faith to three main subjects,
convulsive of the diaphragmatic muscles, building up each series upon
the inherent humor to be extracted from physical violence as represented
in the perpetrations and punishments of Ruff and Reddy, marital
infidelity as mirrored in the stratagems and errancies of an amorous ape
with an aged and jealous spouse, and the sure-fire familiarity of aged
minstrel jokes (mother-in-law, country constable, young married cookery,
and the like) refurbished in pictorial serials through the agency of two
uproarious and imbecilic vulgarians, Bonehead and Buttinsky.
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