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