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