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'.