a crumb of comfort

No, I didn’t say her name was Miss Hannah, Who, Why I mean Miss Hannah Kristianson of the Krystal Optical company and the hustling vice chairmaness of the Pageant of Progress Parade committee on interesting mercantile and other business establishments in this parade.

Probably nowhere else do the popular playmakers of Broadway reveal their imaginative shortcomings so clearly as in the employment of what is colloquially known as hokum. In particular, comedy hokum. … Year in and year out, and (though still largely sure-fire) become drably stereotyped and threadbare, this hokum of tripping over the doormat, throwing an imaginary object into the wings and having the stagehand thereupon strike a gong, and the like, is promulgated in all the glory of its venerable whiskers.

And the first sound in the house was the bang, bang of the poker against the raker, as Morel smashed the remainder of the coal to make the kettle, which was filled and left on the hob, finally boil.