But sooner or later Junior ferrets one of us out and presents himself beaming. “Now will you read me the ‘funnies’?” is the dread sentence which opens the siege. It then becomes a rather ill-natured contest between Doris and me to see which can pick the more bearable pages to read, leaving the interminable ones, containing great balloons pregnant with words, for the other.
I usually find that Doris has read the Briggs page to Junior before I get downstairs, the Briggs page (and possibly the drawings of Voight’s Lester De Pester) being the only department that an adult mind can dwell on and keep its self-respect. “Now I will read you Briggs,” says Doris with the air of an indulgent parent, but settling down with great relish to the task, “and Daddy will read you the others.”
Having been stuck for over a year with “the others” I have now reached a stage where I utilize a sort of second sight in the reading whereby the words are seen and pronounced without ever registering on my brain at all. And, as I sit with Junior impassive on my lap (just why children should so frantically seek to have the “funnies” read to them is a mystery, for they never by any chance seem to derive the slightest emotional pleasure from the recital but sit in stony silence as if they rather disapproved of the whole thing after all) I have evolved a system which enables me to carry on a little constructive thinking while reading aloud, thereby keeping the time from being entirely wasted. Heaven knows we get little enough opportunity to sit down and think things out in this busy work-a-day world, so that this little period of mental freedom is in the nature of a godsend. Thus:
What Is Being Read Aloud
“Here he says ‘Gee but this is tough luck a new automobile an’ no place to go’ and the dog is saying ‘It aint so tough at that’. Then here in the next picture the old man says: Percy ain’t in my class as a chauffeur, he ain’t as fearless as me’ and this one is saying ‘Hello there, that looks like the old tin Lizzie that I gave to the General last year I guess I’ll take a peek and see what’s up’ ‘Well what are you doing hanging around here, what do you think this is a hotel?’ ‘Say where do you get that stuff you ain’t no justice of the peace you know’ ‘Wow! Let me out let me out, I say’ ‘I’ll show you biff biff wham zowie!’ etc. etc.”
