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While
he pondered the matter, more strikers gathered across his path. (37)Suddenly,
the graying pencil-line mustache on Michener’s face stretched a
little in Cheshirean complicity. “How very nice of you all (38)to
turn out to see me!” he boomed. “Thank you. Shall we go in?” The
line parted and, by the time the pickets began to chuckle, the governor-general
was striding briskly up the school steps.
(39)Next
time you find yourself in an ethnically awkward situation, take a lesson
from the diplomatic delegates to Europe’s Common Market. In
the course of history nearly every member nation has been invaded or (40)betrayed
by at least one of the others, and the Market’s harmony must be constantly
buttressed. One method is the laugh based on national aricatures. Recently,
(41)a
new arrival at Market headquarters in Brussels (42)
introduced himself as a Minister for the Swiss Navy.
Everybody laughed. The Swiss delegate retorted, (43)“Well,
why not? Italy has a Minister of Finance.”
Of course, humor is often
more than a laughing matter. (44)
In its more potent guises, it has a Trojan- horse
nature: no one goes on guard against a gag; we let it in because
it looks like a little wooden toy. Once inside, however, it can turn a city
to reform, to rebellion, to resistance. (45)Some
believe, for instance, that, next to the heroic British RAF, British
humor did the most to fend off a German takeover in World War II.
One sample will suffice: that famous story of the woman who was finally
extracted from the rubble of her house during the London blitz. Asked, “Where
is your husband?” she brushed brick dust off her head and arms and answered,
(46)
“Fighting in Libya, the bloody coward!”
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English
Intensive Reading 
Introduction
