great
sorrow coming into its life, everybody is bound to accept the statement.
For after all how few among us really know whether a distressed whale
sobs aloud or does so under its breath? Who, with any certainty, can
tell whether a mother whale hatches her own egg her own self or leaves
it on the sheltered bosom of a fjord to be incubated by the gentle
warmth of the midnight sun? The possibilities of the proposition for
purposes of informal debate, pro and con, are apparent at a glance.

The weather, of course, helps out amazingly when you are meeting people
for the first time, because there is nearly always more or less weather
going on somewhere and practically everybody has ideas about it. The
human breakfast is also a wonderfully good topic to start up during one
of those lulls. Try it yourself the next time the conversation seems
to drag. Just speak up in an offhand kind of way and say that you never
care much about breakfast--a slice of toast and a cup of weak tea start
you off properly for doing a hard day's work. You will be surprised to
note how things liven up and how eagerly all present join in. The lady
on your left feels that you should know she always takes two lumps of
sugar and nearly half cream, because she simply cannot abide hot milk,
no matter what the doctors say. The gentleman on your right will be
moved to confess he likes his eggs boiled for exactly three minutes,
no more and no less. Buckwheat cakes and sausage find a champion and
oatmeal rarely lacks a warm defender.

But after all, when all is said and done, the king of all topics is
operations. Sooner or later, wherever two or more are gathered together
it is reasonably certain that somebody will bring up an operation.

Until I passed through the experience of being operated on myself, I
never really realized what a precious conversational boon the subject
is, and how great a part it plays in our intercourse with our fellow
beings on this planet. To the teller it is enormously interesting, for
he is not only the hero of the tale but the rest of the cast and the
stage setting as well--the whole show, as they say; and if the listener
has had a similar experience--and who is there among us in these days
that has not taken a nap 'neath the shade of the old ether cone?--it
acquires a doubled value.

"Speaking of operations--" you say, just like that, even though
nobody present has spoken of them; and then you are off, with your new
acquainta