Stories of Comedy, from Little Classics

According to Wikipedia: "Rossiter Johnson (27 January 1840 Rochester, New York - 1931) was an author and editor... In 1883 he became editor of the Annual Cyclopaedia. He devised and edited the series of Little Classics (16 vols., Boston, 1874-1875; two additional vols., 1880; 25th ed., 1887), and has also edited Works of the British Poets, with Biographical Sketches (3 vols., New York, 1876); Famous Single and Fugitive Poems (1877); Play-Day Poems (1878); and, with Charles A. Dana, Fifty Perfect Poems (1882). In 1876, he tried making abbreviated editions of some of the greater novels of the English language (4 vols., 16 mo., New York). Johnson also wrote, besides numerous contributions to periodicals, Phaeton Rogers, a Novel of Boy Life, first published as a serial in St. Nicholas (New York, 1881), A History of the War between the United States and Great Britain in 1812-1815 (1882), A History of the French War, ending in the Conquest of Canada (1882), Idler and Poet, a small volume of verses of which the most popular is the hot-weather poem “Ninety-nine in the Shade” (Boston, 1883) and A Short History of the War of Secession, first published serially in the New York Examiner."