The temptation to tangle with an analysis of the late James Thurber's gay and anguished humour is generally irresistible to reviewers confronted with such excerpts from the work of this inconsistently gifted man as may, from time to time, be offered upon a stage. It probably will, however, be resisted by me. This is partly because analysis entails rationality, and I doubt whether that is quite the thing to bring to any question involving humorous taste; partly because I can see the folly of attempting a task in which so many devoted students have failed; partly, too, because I have no really confident view of Thurber, whose fancies sometimes entertained me immoderately, but whose reputation had, I think, to survive some of the most unfunny and aimless pieces of writing and drawing ever put between covers; but mostly, perhaps, because Thurber intended the stuff to be between covers...