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 178 His description of himself in his journal as a "pebble-hearted cur," the occasion being his parting with the emotional Madame Mirbel, is truly humorous, because of its remoteness from the truth. There are plenty of men who could have risked using the phrase without exciting in us that sudden sense of incongruity which is a legitimate source of laughter. A delightful instance of effrontery, which shows both spirit and invention, is the story told by Sir Francis Doyle of the highwayman who, having attacked and robbed Lord Derby and his friend Mr. Grenville, said to them with reproachful candor, "What scoundrels you must be to fire at gentlemen who risk their lives upon the road!" As for the wit that lies in playful misstatements and exaggerations, we must search for it in the riotous humor of Lamb's letters, where the true and the false are often so inextricably commingled that it is a hopeless task to separate facts from fancies. "I shall certainly go to the naughty man for fibbing," writes Lamb, with soft laughter; and the devout apprehension may have been justly shared by Edward Fitzgerald, when he describes the parish church at Woodbridge as