ted with laughter: "I was
laughing to see how funny it was when there wasn't anything." No
wonder that folks want children to be seen but not heard. And some
folks are scandalized because a chap like that doesn't like to wash
his neck and ears.

CHAPTER XVIII

PICNICS

The code of table etiquette in the days of my boyhood, as I now
recall it, was expressed something like: "Eat what is set before you
and ask no questions." We heeded this injunction with religious
fidelity, but yearned to ask why they didn't set more before us.
About the only time that a real boy gets enough to eat is when he
goes to a picnic and, even there and then, the rounding out of the
programme is connected with clandestine visits to the baskets after
the formal ceremonies have been concluded. At a picnic there is no
such expression as "from soup to nuts," for there is no soup, and
perhaps no nuts, but there is everything else in tantalizing
abundance. If I find a plate of deviled eggs near me, I begin with
deviled eggs; or, if the cold tongue is nearer, I begin with that.
In this way I reveal, for the pleasure of the hostesses, my
unrestricted and democratic appetite. Or, in order to obviate any
possible embarrassment during the progress of the chicken toward me,
I may take a piece of pie or a slice of cake, thinking that they may
not return once they have been put in circulation. Certainly I take
jelly when it passes along, as well as pickles, olives, and cheese.
There is no incongruity, at such a time, in having a slice of baked
ham and a slice of angel-food cake on one's plate or in one's hands.
They harmonize beautifully both in the color scheme and in the
gastronomic scheme. At a picnic my boyhood training reaches its full
fruition: "Eat what is set before you and ask no questions." These
things I do.

That's a good rule for reading, too, just to read what is set before
you and ask no questions. I'm thinking now of the reader member of
my dual nature, not the student member. I like to cater somewhat to
both these members. When the reader member is having his inning, I
like to give him free rein and not hamper him by any lock-step or
stereotyped method or course. I like to lead him to a picnic table
and dismiss him with the mere statement that "Heaven helps those who
help themselves," and thus leave him to his own devices. If
Southey's, "The Curse of Kehama," happens to be nearest his plate, he
will naturally begin w