Die digitale Landesbibliothek Oberösterreich

Hop-Frog. 
I never knew any one so keenly alive to a joke 
as the king was. He seemed to live only for joking. 
To tell a good story of the joke kind, and to tell 
it well, was the surest road to his favour. a 
Thus it happened that his seven ministers were all 
noted for their accomplishmenfs as jokers. They 
all took after the king, too, in being large, corpu- 
lent, oily men, as well as inimitable jokers. ~~ 
Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether 
there is something in fat itself which predisposes 
to a joke, I have never been quite able to de- 
termine; but certain it is that a lean “joker is a 
rara avis in terris. 
About the refinements, or, as he called them, the 
“chosts” of wit, the king troubled himself very 
little. He had an especial admiration for breadth 
in a jest, and would often put up with length, 
for the sake of it. =~. =~ 
Overniceties wearied him. He would have pre- 
ferred Rabelais’ “Gargantua” to the “Zadig” of 
Voltaire: and, upon the whole, practical “jokes 
suited his taste far better than verbal ones. LC 
At the date of my narrative, professing jesters 
had not ‘altogether gone out of fashion at court. 
Several of the. great continental “powers” still 
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