“Spencer,” you might say to him, “where are Daddy’s slippers?” To which he would undoubtedly answer:  “I don’t know, Dad,” (disagreeable little boys like that always call their fathers “Dad” and stand with their feet wide apart and their hands in their pockets like girls playing boys’ roles on the stage) “but I do know this, that all the Nordic peoples are predisposed to astigmatism because of the glare of the sun on the snow, and that, furthermore, if you were to place a common ordinary marble in a glass of luke-warm cider there would be a precipitation which, on pouring off the cider, would be found to be what we know as parsley, just plain parsley which Cook uses every night in preparing our dinner.”

With little ones like this around the house, a new version of “The Children’s Hour” will have to be arranged, and it might as well be done now and got over with.

The Well-Informed Children’s Hour

  Between the dark and the day-light,
  When the night is beginning lo lower,
  Comes a pause in the day’s occupation
  Which is known as the children’s hour. 
  ’Tis then appears tiny Irving
  With the patter of little feet,
  To tell us that worms become dizzy
  At a slight application of heat. 
  And Norma, the baby savant,
  Comes toddling up with the news
  That a valvular catch in the larynx
  Is the reason why Kitty mews. 
  “Oh Grandpa,” cries lovable Lester,
  “Jack Frost has surprised us again,
  By condensing in crystal formation
  The vapor which clings to the pane!”
  Then Roger and Lispinard Junior
  Race pantingly down through the hall
  To be first with the hot information
  That bees shed their coats in the Fall. 
  No longer they clamor for stories
  As they cluster in fun ’round my knee
  But each little darling is bursting
  With a story that he must tell me,
  Giving reasons why daisies are sexless
  And what makes the turtle so dour;
  So it goes through the horrible gloaming
  Of the Well-informed Children’s Hour.

IV

RULES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR WATCHING AUCTION BRIDGE

With all the expert advice that is being offered in print these days about how to play games, it seems odd that no one has formulated a set of rules for the spectators.  The spectators are much more numerous than the players, and seem to need more regulation.  As a spectator of twenty years standing, versed in watching all sports except six-day bicycle races, I offer the fruit of my experience in the form of suggestions and reminiscences which may tend to clarify the situation, or, in case there is no situation which needs clarifying, to make one.

In the event of a favorable reaction on the part of the public, I shall form an association, to be known as the National Amateur Audience Association (or the N.A.A.A., if you are given to slang) of which I shall be Treasurer.  That’s all I ask, the Treasurership.