SOURCE: "Perelman Power," in The Listener, Vol. 100, July 20, 1978, p. 94.

In the following review of The Most of S. J. Perelman and Eastward Ha!, Fantoni writes approvingly of Perelman's humorous use of language.

Would anyone mind if I take the weight off my dogs for a minute or two, flop down on the chaise-longue and give a brief account of how I first clapped eyes on the printed word of Sid Perelman? It happened this wise. While I was still no taller than a mongoose with backache I enrolled for a course in painting at a South London établissement set up for that kind of thing and went about in a beret, my fragile chin covered by a beard with less hair than a moth-eaten coconut, and only answered to the name Paul Gauguin.

Part of the course was given over to the study of technical drawing. The idea...