I HAVE said that Toole has a quaint sense of humour; and over
supper, at York, I had several striking illustrations of it Humour
is of no period nor nationality. We were talking of memory,
and how it is cultivated to a marvellous power by actors.
" Has it ever struck you," he asked, " what possible quackery
there is in this new business of memory teaching?" and he
went on to answer his own question as clever story-tellers and
modern ballad-makers do. " I often think of a capital illustra-
tion of the nonsense of these memory men when I see their
advertisements. A man pays two guineas and takes lessons.
At the ehd of his course, he returns, rings the bell — * What is
it ? ' they ask. * I have forgotten my umbrella ! ' "



176 REMINISCENCES OF /. Z. TOOLE.
This is akin to Rabelais' satire of Panurge consulting Herr
Trippa the astrologist, who could forecast and tell all things to
come, and was intended to typify a famous German sage ; and
who foretold Panurge how he should be deceived and disgraced
by his wife when he married ; and who, knowing everything,
did not know that while he was prating to the king or Panurge,
the pages and lacqueys about the Court were making love
successfully to his wife, who was passable fair and a pretty snug
hussy ; that, indeed, what he was so solemnly predicting for
another was happening to himselE

VI.
