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This collection assembles more than three hundred brief anecdotes, jokes, and epigrams that depend on wordplay, situational irony, and everyday foibles. Each item appears as a short titled vignette, ranging from single-line quips to slightly longer comic sketches touching on family life, clergy, lawyers, regional manners, and social customs. The tone moves between gentle satire and absurdity, using concise setups and swift retorts to highlight human vanity, misunderstanding, and hypocrisy. Entries are grouped for easy dipping and light amusement, offering quick observations and humorous reversals rather than extended narrative development.
One of the best known of Hook's puns was uttered to a visitor to his house at Fulham. The visitor, looking at Putney Bridge, said that he had heard that it was a good investment, and turning to his host asked if that was really so. "I really don't know," was the answer, "but you have only to cross it and you will certainly be tolled."