Jeff Peters is a lineal descendant of Mrs. Malaprop; his use of words is even more humorously mal à propos. The introduction of malapropisms is a device much favoured, for obvious reasons, by the authors of humorous literature, and in skilful hands it can result in a high form of wit. In creating Jeff Peters, O. Henry, for example, surpassed Sheridan himself and gave us an even finer subtlety of wit.

It is to be noted, in passing, that when a malapropism is not obvious, it fails to be funny; it fails even to be remarked as a misuse and tends to become accepted in its erroneous or distorted sense. If a panegyrist is reported to have ‘larded his subject with a nice derangement of epitaphs,’ the substitution of words of common speech similar in sound but not in sense is sufficiently obvious to be amusing. But when the substitution is not recognized, ignorance eliminates the sense of the ridiculous. We are not, in short, amused. Thus it is not everyone who will appreciate the humour of ‘fussily decency averni.’

It is curious to remark how frequently a sense of humour, and from another point of view even an appreciation of wit, is the result of a rather snobbish sense of superiority. When a man slips on a banana skin, the cream of the joke goes to his fellow-man who has not slipped but remains proudly upright. A sense of superiority, physical or mental, is a normal condition in the appreciation of humour.