home. They should remember that if
their children at school long for holidays, it is not because they are
tired of their work, it is because they are homesick.

And young people just married always think that the best way of
beginning the matrimonial journey is to have a holiday and travel,
although, maybe, the thoughtful bridegroom has prepared a delightful
nest for his bride.

'Where should I spend my honeymoon?' I have often been asked by young
men not rich enough to go and spend it in the expensive resorts. I have
invariably answered, 'Go home and spend it there, you idiot.'

CHAPTER XIII

EXTRACTS FROM THE DICTIONARY OF A CYNIC

(_After Jules Noriac_)

ALABASTER--Kind of beautiful white marble, so much used in novels for
ladies' necks and shoulders that very little is left for ordinary
consumption. Very rare now in the trade, still very common in poetry.

ALIBI--An aunt for wives; the club for husbands.

ARDOUR--Heat, extreme and dangerous. Those who gamble with ardour ruin
their families; those who work with ardour ruin their health; those who
study with ardour go to a lunatic asylum; those who love with ardour get
cured more quickly than others.

ARGUS--Domestic spy. Juno gave him a cow to look after. With his hundred
eyes he did not find out that the cow was no other than a woman, Io.

ATTRACTION--Force which tends to draw bodies to each other. Isaac Newton
thought he had discovered the principle of universal attraction when he
watched an apple fall. Eve had discovered it five thousand years
earlier.

AUSTERITY--Self-control which enables a man or a woman to receive a call
from Cupid without inviting him to stay to dinner.

BOUDOIR--From the French _bouder_ (to sulk). Coquettish little room
where women retire when they have a love-letter to write or any other
reason for wishing to be left alone.

CANDOUR--A virtue practised by women who do not understand what they
know perfectly well.

COLLECTION--Hobby. Men collect flies, beetles, butterflies. Women
collect faded flowers, hair, letters, and photographs.

DUENNA--Old woman who watches over the good conduct of young Spanish
girls and of married women. In the second case, her wages are higher.

EGOTISM--Piece of ground on which Love builds his cottage.

LOVE--A disease which mankind escapes with still more difficulty than
the measles. It generally attacks men at twenty and women at eighteen.
Then it is not dangerous. At thirty you are