dle-doo. So he was a cock-a-doodle-doo. And he wanted to fly
up into the sky. So he did fly up into the sky. And he wanted to get
wings and a tail. So he did get some wings and a tail."

Physiologists tell us that the trouble with advancing years is that the
material which in youth went directly to building up the vital organs is
diverted to the connective tissue, so that after a time there gets to be
too much connective tissue and too little to connect. When the
imagination is in its first freshness, a story is almost without
connective tissue. There seems hardly enough to hold it together. There
is nothing to take our minds off the successive happenings. If it is
deemed desirable that a little boy should be a cock-a-doodle-doo, then
he is a cock-a-doodle-doo. All else is labor and sorrow.

As a listener my Philosopher is no less successful than as an
improviser. He is not one of those fickle hearers whose demands for some
new thing are the ruination of literary art. When he finds something
beautiful it is a joy to him forever, and its loveliness increases with
each repetition. In a classic tale he is quick to resent the slightest
change in phraseology. There is a just severity in his rebuke when, in
order to give a touch of novelty, I mix up the actions appropriate to
the big bear, the little bear, and the middle-sized bear. This clumsy
attempt at originality by means of a willful perversion of the truth
offends him. If a person can't be original without making a mess of it,
why try to be original at all?

With what keen expectancy he awaits each inevitable word, and how
pleased he is to find that everything comes out as he expected! He
reserves his full emotion for the true dramatic climax. If a great
tragedian could be assured of having such an appreciative audience, how
pleasant would be the pathway of art! The tragedy of Cock Robin reaches
its hundredth night with no apparent falling off in interest. It is
followed as only the finest critic will listen to the greatest actor of
an immortal drama. He is perfectly familiar with the text, and knows
where the thrills come in. When the fatal arrow pierces Cock Robin's
breast, it never fails to bring an appreciative exclamation, "He's
killed Cock Robin!"

Of the niceties of science my Philosopher takes little account, yet he
loves to frequent the Museum of Natural History, and is on terms of
intimacy with many of the stuffed animals. He walks as a small Adam in
this