When everyone had turned to the last page, I began reading.
“Wait a minute, Peter,” Porky interrupted. “Are you really going to resign now, or is this just practice?” “I’m really going to resign now,” I said. “Well, this may be kind of a technical point,” said Porky, “but if you’re really resigning, shouldn’t you do it in the real meeting? This is just the practice for the meeting, isn’t it?” “Not any more,” I said, beaming, enormously grateful to Porky for playing the straight man this way. I flipped back to the beginning of the manual and read:
I looked up at Porky and grinned. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s very good. Very, very good. …”
Little Follies, “The Young Tars”
Dialect, Slang, Idiolect
I tossed my notebook over my shoulder as I had tossed the court-martial procedures. A little more uneasy chuckling. “Now that I’m going to resign, I want you to know that, all things considered, I liked being Scribe, but I have to admit that I’ve got better things to do than change the order of the traits again—” There was laughter at this, we-know-just-what-you-mean laughter. After a pause, I added, “—and again—” They roared. After a longer pause, I said, “—and again.” I brought down the house.
Little Follies, “The Young Tars”
bring down the house
Also, bring the house down. Evoke tumultuous applause and cheers, as in Her solo brought the house down. This hyperbolic term suggests noise loud enough to pose a threat to the building—an unlikely occurrence. In the late 1800s, British music-hall comedians punned on it: when the audience greeted a joke with silence, they said, “Don’t clap so hard; you’ll bring down the house (it’s a very old house).”
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