jellylike

1895, Mark Twain, “How to Tell a Story,” in Tales, Speeches, Essays, and Sketches, edited by Tom Quirk, Penguin, 1994, originally published in The Youth’s Companion, 3 October, 1895, The teller is innocent and happy and pleased with himself, and has to stop every little while to hold himself in and keep from laughing outright; and does hold in, but his body quakes in a jelly-like way with interior chuckles; and at the end of the ten minutes the audience have laughed until they are exhausted, and the tears are running down their faces.