't time to wait.
So we begin on what happens to be in front of us, cereal first at one end
of the table, fruit first in the middle (if there is any!), eggs and
bacon further along; thus by degrees we work through the bill of fare.
And this is not improper.

But when the fellows take to laying in supplies of whatever is within
reach, and surrounding themselves with plates heaped with the substance
of future courses, it is first unfair and next demoralizing. If one man
hogs the available supply for merely later use, he teaches his neighbor
to do the same in self-defense. And so you can watch the proof of the old
copy-book motto concerning evil communications.

A word concerning reaching at table, for your guidance, my dear mother,
when next you find yourself at a table d'hote. I calculate that for this
method of helping one's self there is a wrong way and a right. Imagine
yourself beside a busy person beyond whom lies the wished-for dish. If
you reach with the arm nearest the dish, your arm goes across your
neighbor's plate, a fact which my neighbors have frequently proved to me.
But if you reach with the arm furthest from the dish you will not cross
his plate, your body swinging your arm in over the table. I come to this
interesting social discovery rather late in life, on account of the
excellent table service to which you have accustomed me.

There goes the warning bugle. If I am not safely tucked up in my little
bed at taps, the sergeant will say "Tut! Tut!" So good night.

DICK.

MRS. GODWIN TO HER SON RICHARD, IN A LETTER
DATED SEPTEMBER 14, 1916

Your telegram, my dear, dear Dick, I have just replied to, and will now
add such facts as I know concerning Vera's going to Plattsburg. What I
can tell you comes through her sister Frances, with whom I have always
been more intimate than Vera, even when you two were engaged. And Frances
has come several times to the house, now that you are gone. I asked her
to.

If the breaking of your engagement was a blow to your pride, my dear boy,
think what it was to Vera's. I don't know anyone prouder than she. And to
publish the fact that you two had changed your minds--! She wanted to go
away, but the Wadsworths are nearly as poor as they are proud, and she
didn't feel justified. Then there came a letter from her cousin Dolly,
who married that handsome Captain Marsh and was stationed at Plattsburg.
D