Life — April 4, 1912 — page 78: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Moreover, you yourself are obliged to readjust your attitude in order to retains the boy’s respect, and you have to do it thoroughly. You can't fool a boy. You can't smile outwardly and fuss inside; the boy will know it, You must be gen- vine, That means that you must really and actually make the best of disagrce- able things, but it means much more than this, It means that you must dis- criminate between what is worth while having a row about and what is not. There is nothing a boy loves better t a row, provided it is a proper row in it all the principal clements of a scrap, and in which you come off vie- torious. Thus when you travel with a boy you are constantly improving your own character. You are learning to be uniformly cheerful, to ignore unpleas- antness and to fight when there is good prospect of winning in such a way that you can brag about it afterwards—make a story out of it—for there is nothing a boy loves better than a story. It must not be supposed, however, that a boy has no critical faculty; on the con- trary, he is the keenest critic in the world, After you have traveled with him for a day, you begin to despise yourself for your appalling ignorance; and there- after you gradually slide into a condition of true humility from which you never fully recover. You thought you knew something about machinery; but after you have led the boy off to inspect the ship's engines, and after you have been THACKERAY wrote in 1849 in praise of ‘PUNCH $ Ti ERE were never before published in this world so many volumes that contained so much cause for laughing and so little for blushing, so many jokes and so little harm.” This is no less true to-day. Copy sent post free for 8 cents in PUNCH © is sent weekly for one year, inclusive of “Almanack,” tor $4.40. ‘Address : “ Punch" Office, 10 Bouverie Street, London, England xe GHEE “MADE AT KEY WESTS= BORDEAUS FRAN. Lacked up from one untenable position to another until you have to fall back on the fireman to help you out—well, after that you realize your own frightful in- adequacy, The boy, however, docs not hold it up against you. He is charitable in the only real sense; it is really marvelous how, in spite of your appalling ignorance, he continues to be your close friend. But perhaps, after all, when you travel with a boy the best part of the whole affair is the complete abandon you feel with regard to the character of your en- TEE WILLIAMS PRINTING COMPANY, NEW YORK tertainment. Nothing really harins a boy; and the vaudeville that your wife or your “refined” woman friend «ould be horrified at, may—in the mids: of its vulgarity—contain cosmic elemen's of joy in some character artist who rings true. When you travel with a boy you live over again the life of all your ancestors; your journey is a large adventure in which you are the epic characters; and all the hypocritical, pedantic and shallow pretences of civilization fade away like spectres. T..L. 3M