The line of veracity has become somewhat undulating.

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin.   

Nor does it matter if in the course of traveling and much handling, the “line of veracity has become somewhat undulating.” The story’s the thing. If it seems true, fine. If not—well, “it makes a good story.” The final test of a good anecdote is not so much its truth to experience as its power to sum up and illuminate experience—a power of concentration and crystallization in which the anecdote excels, to a greater degree, perhaps, than any other genre. The anecdote illuminates not only a situation but a human attitude or relationship, ineluding the relationship between the storyteller and his audience. It also illuminates the folkways of a people, as symbols, allusions, bywords, and other forms of popular fantasy are designed to do. Because the fantasies and the folkways constantly reinforce each other, American anecdotes unlock doors to understanding America and open windows on the American past and the American heritage.