The Apostate by George Milburn, 1932
The magic trick:
Putting a man on the defensive about a ridiculous situation
“The Apostate” seeks to make you laugh – and it does so in a very 1932 New Yorker story kind of way. The narrative premise is designed for humor from the start. It’s a story told in the second person; a man explaining to his friend with the Rotary Club why he hasn’t been attending meetings lately. That’s an innately defensive position, which is innately embarrassing for a grown man. The situation’s comedy only intensifies as he lays out his explanation. It’s like capturing an adult’s embarrassing moment and airing it on social media or something.
And that’s quite a trick on Milburn’s part.
The selection:
“Well, you better, son,” I says, “or I’m going to begin to think that you’re sick in the head.”
The way he explained it, though, Harry, that made it a horse of a different tail, as the saying goes, so I give in and took off my Rotary button right there. Stuck it in my pocket, see? So we went on out and visited at Hubert’s fraternity house, and do you know that those boys just got around there and treated we folks like we was princes of the blood. I mean you would of thought that I was an old ex-graduate of that university. And we saw the big pigskin tussle the next day, fourteen to aught, favor us, and we had such a scrumptious time all around I forgot all about what Hubert had said.
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