Love Conquers All by Robert C. Benchley

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This morning's winners in the Lymedale commuters' contest for seats on
the shady side of the car on the 8:28 were L.Y. Irman, Sydney M.
Gissith, John F. Nothman and Louis Leque. All the other seats were won
by commuters from Loose Valley, the next station above Lymedale. In
trying to scramble up the car-steps in advance of lady passengers,
Merton Steef had his right shin badly skinned and hit his jaw on the
bottom step. Time was _not_ called while his injuries were being looked
after.

[Illustration: He was further aided by the breaks of the game.]

Before an enthusiastic and notable gathering, young Lester J. Dimmik,
age three, put to rout his younger brother, Carl Withney Dimmik, Jr.,
age two, in their matutinal contest to see which can dispose of his
Wheatena first. In the early stages of the match, it began to look as if
the bantamweight would win in a walk, owing to his trick of throwing
spoonfuls of the breakfast food over his shoulder and under the tray of
his high-chair. The referees soon put a stop to this, however, and
specified that the Wheatena must be placed _in_ the mouth. This cramped
Dimmick Junior's form and it soon became impossible for him to locate
his mouth at all. At this point, young Lester took the lead, which he
maintained until he crossed the line an easy winner. As a reward he was
relieved of the necessity of eating another dish of Wheatena.

* * * * *

Stephen L. Agnew was the lucky guest in the home of Orrin F. McNeal this
week-end, beating out Lee Stable for first chance at the bath-tub on
Sunday morning. Both contestants came out of their bed rooms at the same
time, but Agnew's room being nearer the bath-room, he made the distance
down the hall in two seconds quicker time than his somewhat heavier
opponent, and was further aided by the breaks of the game when Stable
dropped his sponge half-way down the straightaway. Agnew's time in the
bath-room was 1 hr. and 25 minutes.

XV

READING THE FUNNIES ALOUD

One of the minor enjoyable features of having children is the necessity
of reading aloud to them the colored comic sections in the Sunday
papers.

And no matter how good your intentions may have been at first to keep
the things out of the house (the comic sections, not the children)
sooner or later there comes a Sunday when you find that your little boy
has, in some underground fashion, learned of the raucous existence of
_Simon Simp_ or the _Breakback Babies_, and is demanding the current
installment with a fervor which will not be denied.

Sunday morning in our house has now become a time for low subterfuge on
the part of Doris and me in our attempts to be somewhere else when
Junior appears dragging the "funnies" (a loathsome term in itself) to be
read to him. I make believe that the furnace looks as if it might fall
apart at any minute if it is not watched closely, and Doris calls from
upstairs that she may be some time over the weekly accounts.

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 ain't 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."

_Concurrent Thinking_

"Here I am in the thirties and it is high time that I made
something of myself. Is my job as good as I deserve? By studying
nights I might fit myself for a better position in the foreign
exchange department, but that would mean an outlay of money.
Furthermore, is it, on the whole, wise to attempt to hurry the
workings of Fate? Is not perhaps the determinist right who says
that what we are and what we ever can be is already written in the
books, that we can not alter the workings of Destiny one iota?
This theory is, of course, tenable, but, on the whole, it seems to
me that if I were to take the matter into my own hands, etc. etc."

And then, when the last pot of boiling water has been upset over the
last grandfather's back, and Junior has slid down from your lap as near
satisfied as he ever will be, you have ten or fifteen minutes of
constructive thinking behind you, which, if practiced every Sunday, will
make you President of the company within a few years.

XVI

OPERA SYNOPSES

_Some Sample Outlines of Grand Opera Plots For Home Study._

I

DIE MEISTER-GENOSSENSCHAFT

SCENE: _The Forests of Germany_.

TIME: _Antiquity_.

CAST

STRUDEL, _God of Rain_ Basso

SCHMALZ, _God of Slight Drizzle_ Tenor

IMMERGLUeCK, _Goddess of the Six Primary Colors_ Soprano

LUDWIG DAS EIWEISS, _the Knight of the Iron Duck_ Baritone

THE WOODPECKER Soprano

ARGUMENT

The basis of "Die Meister-Genossenschaft" is an old legend of Germany
which tells how the Whale got his Stomach.

ACT I

_The Rhine at Low Tide Just Below Weldschnoffen._--Immerglueck has grown
weary of always sitting on the same rock with the same fishes swimming
by every day, and sends for Schwuel to suggest something to do. Schwuel
asks her how she would like to have pass before her all the wonders of
the world fashioned by the hand of man. She says, rotten. He then
suggests that Ringblattz, son of Pflucht, be made to appear before her
and fight a mortal combat with the Iron Duck. This pleases Immerglueck
and she summons to her the four dwarfs: Hot Water, Cold Water, Cool, and
Cloudy. She bids them bring Ringblattz to her. They refuse, because
Pflucht has at one time rescued them from being buried alive by acorns,
and, in a rage, Immerglueck strikes them all dead with a thunderbolt.

ACT 2

_A Mountain Pass_.--Repenting of her deed, Immerglueck has sought advice
of the giants, Offen and Besitz, and they tell her that she must procure
the magic zither which confers upon its owner the power to go to sleep
while apparently carrying on a conversation. This magic zither has been
hidden for three hundred centuries in an old bureau drawer, guarded by
the Iron Duck, and, although many have attempted to rescue it, all have
died of a strange ailment just as success was within their grasp.

But Immerglueck calls to her side Dampfboot, the tinsmith of the gods,
and bids him make for her a tarnhelm or invisible cap which will enable
her to talk to people without their understanding a word she says. For a
dollar and a half extra Dampfboot throws in a magic ring which renders
its wearer insensible. Thus armed, Immerglueck starts out for Walhalla,
humming to herself.

ACT 3

_The Forest Before the Iron Duck's Bureau Drawer_.--Merglitz, who has up
till this time held his peace, now descends from a balloon and demands
the release of Betty. It has been the will of Wotan that Merglitz and
Betty should meet on earth and hate each other like poison, but
Zweiback, the druggist of the gods, has disobeyed and concocted a
love-potion which has rendered the young couple very unpleasant company.
Wotan, enraged, destroys them with a protracted heat spell.

Encouraged by this sudden turn of affairs, Immerglueck comes to earth in
a boat drawn by four white Holsteins, and, seated alone on a rock,
remembers aloud to herself the days when she was a girl. Pilgrims from
Augenblick, on their way to worship at the shrine of Schmuerr, hear the
sound of reminiscence coming from the rock and stop in their march to
sing a hymn of praise for the drying up of the crops. They do not
recognize Immerglueck, as she has her hair done differently, and think
that she is a beggar girl selling pencils.

In the meantime, Ragel, the papercutter of the gods, has fashioned
himself a sword on the forge of Schmalz, and has called the weapon
"Assistance-in-Emergency." Armed with "Assistance-in-Emergency" he comes
to earth, determined to slay the Iron Duck and carry off the beautiful
Irma.

But Frimsel overhears the plan and has a drink brewed which is given to
Ragel in a golden goblet and which, when drunk, makes him forget his
past and causes him to believe that he is Schnorr, the God of Fun. While
laboring under this spell, Ragel has a funeral pyre built on the summit
of a high mountain and, after lighting it, climbs on top of it with a
mandolin which he plays until he is consumed.

Immerglueck never marries.

II

IL MINNESTRONE

(PEASANT LOVE)

SCENE: _Venice and Old Point Comfort._

TIME: _Early 16th Century._

CAST

ALFONSO, _Duke of Minnestrone_ Baritone

PARTOLA, _a Peasant Girl_ Soprano

CLEANSO } { Tenor
TURINO } _Young Noblemen of Venice_. { Tenor
BOMBO } { Basso

LUDOVICO} _Assassins in the service of_ { Basso
ASTOLFO } _Cafeteria Rusticana_ { Methodist

_Townspeople, Cabbies and Sparrows_

ARGUMENT

"Il Minnestrone" is an allegory of the two sides of a man's nature (good
and bad), ending at last in an awfully comical mess with everyone dead.

ACT I

_A Public Square, Ferrara._--During a peasant festival held to celebrate
the sixth consecutive day of rain, Rudolpho, a young nobleman, sees
Lilliano, daughter of the village bell-ringer, dancing along throwing
artificial roses at herself. He asks of his secretary who the young
woman is, and his secretary, in order to confuse Rudolpho and thereby
win the hand of his ward, tells him that it is his (Rudolpho's) own
mother, disguised for the festival. Rudolpho is astounded. He orders her
arrest.

ACT 2

_Banquet Hall in Gorgio's Palace._--Lilliano has not forgotten Breda,
her old nurse, in spite of her troubles, and determines to avenge
herself for the many insults she received in her youth by poisoning her
(Breda). She therefore invites the old nurse to a banquet and poisons
her. Presently a knock is heard. It is Ugolfo. He has come to carry away
the body of Michelo and to leave an extra quart of pasteurized. Lilliano
tells him that she no longer loves him, at which he goes away, dragging
his feet sulkily.

ACT 3

_In Front of Emilo's House._--Still thinking of the old man's curse,
Borsa has an interview with Cleanso, believing him to be the Duke's
wife. He tells him things can't go on as they are, and Cleanso stabs
him. Just at this moment Betty comes rushing in from school and falls
in a faint. Her worst fears have been realized. She has been insulted by
Sigmundo, and presently dies of old age. In a fury, Ugolfo rushes out to
kill Sigmundo and, as he does so, the dying Rosenblatt rises on one
elbow and curses his mother.

III

LUCY DE LIMA

SCENE: _Wales_.

TIME: _1700 (Greenwich)_.

CAST

WILLIAM WONT, _Lord of Glennnn_ Basso

LUCY WAGSTAFF, _his daughter_ Soprano

BERTRAM, _her lover_ Tenor

LORD ROGER, _friend of Bertram_. Soprano

Irma, _attendant to Lucy_ Basso

_Friends, Retainers and Members of the local Lodge of Elks._

ARGUMENT

"Lucy de Lima," is founded on the well-known story by Boccaccio of the
same name and address.

ACT I

_Gypsy Camp Near Waterbury._--The gypsies, led by Edith, go singing
through the camp on the way to the fair. Following them comes Despard,
the gypsy leader, carrying Ethel, whom he has just kidnapped from her
father, who had previously just kidnapped her from her mother. Despard
places Ethel on the ground and tells Mona, the old hag, to watch over
her. Mona nurses a secret grudge against Despard for having once cut off
her leg and decides to change Ethel for Nettie, another kidnapped child.
Ethel pleads with Mona to let her stay with Despard, for she has fallen
in love with him on the ride over. But Mona is obdurate.

ACT 2

_The Fair._--A crowd of sightseers and villagers is present. Roger
appears, looking for Laura. He can not find her. Laura appears, looking
for Roger. She can not find him. The gypsy queen approaches Roger and
thrusts into his hand the locket stolen from Lord Brym. Roger looks at
it and is frozen with astonishment, for it contains the portrait of his
mother when she was in high school. He then realizes that Laura must be
his sister, and starts out to find her.

ACT 3

_Hall in the Castle._--Lucy is seen surrounded by every luxury, but her
heart is sad. She has just been shown a forged letter from Stewart
saying that he no longer loves her, and she remembers her old free life
in the mountains and longs for another romp with Ravensbane and
Wolfshead, her old pair of rompers. The guests begin to assemble for the
wedding, each bringing a roast ox. They chide Lucy for not having her
dress changed. Just at this moment the gypsy band bursts in and Cleon
tells the wedding party that Elsie and not Edith is the child who was
stolen from the summer-house, showing the blood-stained derby as proof.
At this, Lord Brym repents and gives his blessing on the pair, while the
fishermen and their wives celebrate in the courtyard.

XVII

THE YOUNG IDEA'S SHOOTING GALLERY

Since we were determined to have Junior educated according to modern
methods of child training, a year and a half did not seem too early an
age at which to begin. As Doris said: "There is no reason why a child of
a year and a half shouldn't have rudimentary cravings for
self-expression." And really, there isn't any reason, when you come
right down to it.

Doris had been reading books on the subject, and had been talking with
Mrs. Deemster. Most of the trouble in our town can be traced back to
someone's having been talking with Mrs. Deemster. Mrs. Deemster brings
an evangelical note into the simplest social conversations, so that by
the time your wife is through the second piece of cinnamon toast she is
convinced that all children should have their knee-pants removed before
they are four, or that you should hire four servants a day on three-hour
shifts, or that, as in the present case, no child should be sent to a
regular school until he has determined for himself what his profession
is going to be and then should be sent straight from the home to Johns
Hopkins or the Sorbonne.

Junior was to be left entirely to himself, the theory being that he
would find self-expression in some form or other, and that by watching
him carefully it could be determined just what should be developed in
him, or, rather, just what he should be allowed to develop in himself.
He was not to be corrected in any way, or guided, and he was to call us
"Doris" and "Monty" instead of "Mother" and "Father." We were to be just
pals, nothing more. Otherwise, his individuality would become submerged.
I was, however, to be allowed to pay what few bills he might incur until
he should find himself.

The first month that Junior was "on his own," striving for
self-expression, he spent practically every waking hour of each day in
picking the mortar out from between the bricks in the fire-place and
eating it.

"Don't you think you ought to suggest to him that nobody who really _is_
anybody eats mortar?" I said.

"I don't like to interfere," replied Doris. "I'm trying to figure out
what it may mean. He may have the makings of a sculptor in him." But one
could see that she was a little worried, so I didn't say the cheap and
obvious thing, that at any rate he had the makings of a sculpture in him
or would have in a few more days of self-expression.

Soft putty was put at his disposal, in case he might feel like doing a
little modeling. We didn't expect much of him at first, of course; maybe
just a panther or a little General Sherman; but if that was to be his
_metier_ we weren't going to have it said that his career was nipped in
the bud for the lack of a little putty.

* * * * *

The first thing that he did was to stop up the keyhole in the bath-room
door while I was in the tub, so that I had to crawl out on the piazza
roof and into the guest-room window. It did seem as if there might be
some way of preventing a recurrence of that sort of thing without
submerging his individuality too much. But Doris said no. If he were
disciplined now, he would grow up nursing a complex against putty and
against me and might even try to marry Aunt Marian. She had read of a
little boy who had been punished by his father for putting soap on the
cellar stairs, and from that time on, all the rest of his life, every
time he saw soap he went to bed and dreamed that he was riding in the
cab of a runaway engine dressed as Perriot, which meant, of course,
that he had a suppressed desire to kill his father.

It almost seemed, however, as if the risk were worth taking if Junior
could be shown the fundamentally anti-social nature of an act like
stuffing keyholes with putty, but nothing was done about it except to
take the putty supply away for that day.

The chief trouble came, however, in Junior's contacts with other
neighborhood children whose parents had not seen the light. When Junior
would lead a movement among the young bloods to pull up the Hemmings'
nasturtiums or would show flashes of personality by hitting little Leda
Hemming over the forehead with a trowel, Mrs. Hemming could never be
made to see that to reprimand Junior would be to crush out his God-given
individuality. All she would say was, "Just look at those nasturtiums!"
over and over again. And the Hemming children were given to understand
that it would be all right if they didn't play with Junior quite so
much.

[Illustration: Mrs. Deemster didn't enter into the spirit of the thing
at all.]

This morning, however, the thing solved itself. While expressing himself
in putty in the nursery, Junior succeeded in making a really excellent
lifemask of Mrs. Deemster's fourteen-months-old little girl who had
come over to spend the morning with him. She had a little difficulty in
breathing, but it really was a fine mask. Mrs. Deemster, however, didn't
enter into the spirit of the thing at all, and after excavating her
little girl, took Doris aside. It was decided that Junior is perhaps too
young to start in on his career unguided.

That is Junior that you can hear now, I think.

XVIII

POLYP WITH A PAST

THE STORY OF AN ORGANISM WITH A HEART

Of all forms of animal life, the polyp is probably the most neglected by
fanciers. People seem willing to pay attention to anything, cats,
lizards, canaries, or even fish, but simply because the polyp is
reserved by nature and not given to showing off or wearing its heart on
its sleeve, it is left alone under the sea to slave away at
coral-building with never a kind word or a pat on the tentacles from
anybody.

It was quite by accident that I was brought face to face with the human
side of a polyp. I had been working on a thesis on "Emotional Crises in
Sponge Life," and came upon a polyp formation on a piece of coral in the
course of my laboratory work. To say that I was astounded would be
putting it mildly. I was surprised.

The difficulty in research work in this field came in isolating a single
polyp from the rest in order to study the personal peculiarities of the
little organism, for, as is so often the case (even, I fear, with us
great big humans sometimes), the individual behaves in an entirely
different manner in private from the one he adopts when there is a crowd
around. And a polyp, among all creatures, has a minimum of time to
himself in which to sit down and think. There is always a crowd of other
polyps dropping in on him, urging him to make a fourth in a string of
coral beads or just to come out and stick around on a rock for the sake
of good-fellowship.

The one which I finally succeeded in isolating was an engaging organism
with a provocative manner and a little way of wrinkling up its ectoderm
which put you at once at your ease. There could be no formality about
your relations with this polyp five minutes after your first meeting.
You were just like one great big family.

Although I have no desire to retail gossip, I think that readers of this
treatise ought to be made aware of the fact (if, indeed, they do not
already know it) that a polyp is really neither one thing nor another in
matters of gender. One day it may be a little boy polyp, another day a
little girl, according to its whim or practical considerations of
policy. On gray days, when everything seems to be going wrong, it may
decide that it will be neither boy nor girl but will just drift. I think
that if we big human cousins of the little polyp were to follow the
example set by these lowliest of God's creatures in this matter, we all
would find, ourselves much better off in the end. Am I not right, little
polyp?

What was my surprise, then, to discover my little friend one day in a
gloomy and morose mood. It refused the peanut-butter which I had brought
it and I observed through the microscope that it was shaking with sobs.
Lifting it up with a pair of pincers I took it over to the window to let
it watch the automobiles go by, a diversion which had, in the past,
never failed to amuse. But I could see that it was not interested. A
tune from the victrola fell equally flat, even though I set my little
charge on the center of the disc and allowed it to revolve at a dizzy
pace, which frolic usually sent it into spasms of excited giggling.
Something was wrong. It was under emotional stress of the most racking
kind.

I consulted Klunzinger's "Die Korallenthiere des Rothen Meeres" and
there found that at an early age the polyp is quite likely to become the
victim of a sentimental passion which is directed at its own self.

In other words, my tiny companion was in love with itself, bitterly,
desperately, head-over-heels in love.

In an attempt to divert it from this madness, I took it on an extended
tour of the Continent, visiting all the old cathedrals and stopping at
none but the best hotels. The malady grew worse, instead of better. I
thought that perhaps the warm sun of Granada would bring the color back
into those pale tentacles, but there the inevitable romance in the soft
air was only fuel to the flame, and, in the shadow of the Alhambra, my
little polyp gave up the fight and died of a broken heart without ever
having declared its love to itself.

I returned to America shortly after not a little chastened by what I had
witnessed of Nature's wonders in the realm of passion.

XIX

HOLT! WHO GOES THERE?

The reliance of young mothers on Dr. Emmett Holt's "The Care and Feeding
of Children," has become a national custom. Especially during the early
infancy of the first baby does the son rise and set by what "Holt says."
But there are several questions which come to mind which are not
included in the handy questionnaire arranged by the noted
child-specialist, and as he is probably too busy to answer them himself,
we have compiled an appendix which he may incorporate in the next
edition of his book, if he cares to. Of course, if he doesn't care to it
isn't compulsory.

BATHING

_What should the parent wear while bathing the child?_

A rubber loin-cloth will usually be sufficient, with perhaps a pair of
elbow-guards and anti-skid gloves. A bath should never be given a child
until at least one hour after eating (that is, after the parent has
eaten).

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