Institutio Oratoria

But the most agreeable of all jests are those which are good humoured and easily digested. Take another example from Afer. Noting that an ungrateful client avoided him in the forum, he sent his servant [*](Lit. the slave employed to name persons to his master.) to him to say,

I hope you are obliged to me for not having seen you.

Again when his steward, being unable to account for certain sums of money, kept saying,

I have not eaten it: I live on bread and water,

he replied,

Master sparrow, pay what you owe.

Such jests the Greeks style ὑπὸ τὸ ἦθος [*]( The meaning is dubious and the phrase cannot be paralleled and is probably corrupt. ) or adapted to character.

It is a pleasant form of jest to reproach a person with less than would be possible, as Afer did when, in answer to a candidate who said,

I have always shown my respect for your family,

he replied, although he might easily have denied the statement,

You are right, it is quite true.

Sometimes it may be a good joke to speak of oneself, while one may often raise a laugh by reproaching a person to his face with things that it would have been merely bad-mannered to bring up against him behind his back.