Later he said to Freddy: “I can’t tell you how happy I am that I got you as my caretaker here. And I don’t regret any of the trouble we had, either—and I hope you don’t. For you’ve worked wonders with Horace, and even Mr. Winch seems to be much less objectionable. I’m sure I don’t know how you do it.”
“I suppose you’d laugh, Mr. Cam—I mean, Jimson,” said Freddy, “if I told you that it was a hoptoad who taught me how to get along with difficult people. But it’s so.” And he told him about Elmo and Waldo.
“You ought to write a book about it,” said Mr. Camphor enthusiastically. “Ha—certainly you should write a book. Eh, Bannister?”
“There is no friend like a good book,” said Bannister.
“Very true,” said Mr. Camphor. “But I didn’t ask you for a proverb, I asked you for an opinion.”
“But it’s the same thing, sir. This book would be a friend because it would tell you how to make friends.”
“I think that is a little farfetched,” said Mr. Camphor. “But anyway, Freddy, you write your book. And if you—if you—” He stopped and blushed, which was so unusual that Bannister entirely forgot to provide even a very slight amount of dignity and stared with his mouth open.
“If you wish to,” went on Mr. Camphor, “you might—ha, you might dedicate it to me. It would please me very much.”
So Freddy said he would be glad to. And that very evening he started the book. This was the title:
THE CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF FRIENDS
A PRACTICAL GUIDE to the Selection and Training of Likely Prospects, with SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES on How to Influence Unpleasant People, and a BRIEF ACCOUNT of Some Illuminating Personal Experiences.
I’m afraid it sounds rather dull, and indeed if Freddy had written it according to the title, I am sure it would have been. But although he started with that idea, pretty soon he did what a good many authors do—he began putting in more and more about himself, until when he had finished it was really not a guide to making friends at all, but a complete autobiography. So that when Mr. Dimsey printed it for him, at the printing office in Centerboro where he printed the Bean Home News, he had to change the title. So it came out as
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDDY
by HIMSELF
which was much more interesting all around. For after all, what a person did is usually a lot more interesting than what he thought about it.
And if you would like to read the book you might try your public library.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1944 by Walter R. Brooks
ISBN: 978-1-4976-9234-3
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Freddy and Mr. Camphor Page 14
