THINKING AND LAUGHING.


It is Uncle Frank's notion, that it is a good thing to laugh, but a
better thing to think. A great many people, however, old as well as
young, and young as well as old, live and die without thinking much.
They lose three quarters of the benefit they ought to get from
reading, and from what they see and learn as they go through the
world, by never diving below the surface of things. I don't suppose
it is so with you. I hope not, at all events. If it is so, then you
had better shut up this book, and pass it over to some young friend of
yours, who has learned to think, and who loves to read books that will
help him about thinking. No, on the whole, you needn't do any such
thing. Just read the book--read it through. Perhaps you will get a
taste for such reading, while you are going through the book.

I must tell you an anecdote just here. You will not refuse to read
that, at any rate.

Not long ago I was in a book store, looking over some new books which
I saw on the counter, when a fine-looking boy, who appeared to be
about nine years old, came in. He had a shilling in his hand, and said
he wanted to buy a book.

"But what book do you want?" one of the clerks asked.

The boy could not tell what it was exactly. But it was a "funny
book"--he was sure of that--and it cost a shilling.

Well, it finally turned out that the book which the little fellow