GENTLE READER: - Let me make you acquainted with my book, "Back Home." (Your right hand, Book, your right hand. Pity's sakes!
How many times have I got to tell you that? Chest up and forward, shoulders back and down, and turn your toes out more.)It is a little book, Gentle Reader, but please don't let that prejudice you against it. The General Public, I know, likes to feel heft in its hand when it buys a book, but I had hoped that you were a peg or two above the General Public. That mythical being goes on a reading spree about every so often, and it selects a book which will probably last out the craving, a book which "it will be impossible to lay down, after it is once begun, until it is finished." (I quote from the standard book notice). A few hours later the following dialogue ensues:
"Henry!"
"Yes, dear."
"Aren't you 'most done reading?"
"Just as soon as I finish this chapter." A sigh and a long wait.
"Henry!"
"Yes, dear."
"Did you lock the side-door?" No answer.
"Henry! Did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Did you lock the side-door?"
"In a minute now."
"Yes, but did you?"
"M-hm. I guess so."
"'Guess so!' Did you lock that side-door? They got in at Hilliard's night before last and stole a bag of clothes-pins.""M."
"Oh, put down that book, and go and lock the side-door. I'll not get a wink of sleep this blessed night unless you do.""In a minute now. Just wait till I finish this . . . ""Go do it now."
Mr. General Public has a card on his desk that says, "Do it Now,"and so he lays down his book with a patient sigh, and comes back to it with a patent grouch.
"Oh, so it is," says the voice from the bedroom. "I remember now, I locked it myself when I put the milk-bottles out . . . . I'm going to stop taking of that man unless there's more cream on the top than there has been here lately.""M."