Bits and Pieces

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by Robert Benchley


  If I were running a thunderstorm I would pick out some big man who goes around saying there is nothing to be afraid of and clip a cigar or two out from between his teeth just to show him. And any nice guy like me, who knows his place and tries to keep it, I would let go scot-free and might even uproot a fine big pot of buried gold pieces for him.

  The funny part about all this is that now that I am old enough to come out frankly and admit how I feel about thunderstorms, I seem to be getting too old to mind them so much. It has been a couple of years now since I had a really good scare (I am now knocking wood so hard that the man in the next room just yelled “Come in!”). Perhaps it is just that, when you get to be my age, it doesn’t make so much difference. If it isn’t lightning, it will be hardening of the arteries. I still would prefer hardening of the arteries, however.

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  A Little Sermon

  on Success

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  A famous politician once remarked, on glancing through a copy of Jo’s Boys by Louisa M. Alcott, that he would rather have written Three Men in a Boat than to have dug the Suez Canal. As a matter of fact, he never did either, and wasn’t quite as famous a politician as I have tried to make out. But he knew what he meant by Success.

  Lord Nelson is quoted as having said to one of his subordinates just before he went into action that there was no such thing as a good war or a good peace; in fact, that he doubted if there was a good anything. Now, Lord Nelson was a successful man in the sense that the world means Success, but he was unhappy because he had on his conscience the fact that he had imprisoned those two little princes in the Tower of London and had been instrumental in having them dressed in black velveteen and wear long blond curls like a couple of sissies. He was a successful man, but had only one eye.

  I could go on indefinitely citing examples of great men who said things. I guess I will.

  One hundred and seventy-five years ago General Wolfe Montcalm (sometimes called General Wolfe and sometimes General Montcalm, but always found on the Plains of Abraham) wrote to his adjutant: “I sometimes wonder what it is all about, this incessant hurry-scurry after Fame. And how are you, my dear adjutant? And that bad shoulder of yours? Look out for that. And look out for a girl named Elsie, who may drop in on you and say that she knows me. She doesn’t know me at all; in fact, who of us can say that he really knows anyone else? I often wonder if I know myself.”

  There was a great deal more to the letter, but I have quoted enough to show that the famous general saw through the phantom which men call Success. He won Quebec, but, after all, what is Quebec? He had to pay eight to ten, and even then he had that long hill to climb. His knowledge of what Life really means came too late for him, just as it comes too late for most of us.

  There is a tribe of head-hunters who live in the jungle of Africa who reverse the general practice of seeking Success. When they are little babies they are all made head of the tribe, the highest office known in the jungle, and are given great bags full of teeth (the medium of exchange corresponding to our money, only not so hard to get and certainly not so easy to get rid of, for who wants a lot of teeth around the house?).

  The idea then is for each young man to spend his life trying to get out of the office of tribal head, to dispose of his legal tender, and to end up in the gutter. The ones who succeed in doing this are counted the happy ones of the tribe, and it is said that they are “successful” men. The most successful man in the history of the tribe ended up in the gutter at the age of seven. But he had luck with him. He lived in the gutter anyway and all that he had to do was to lie over.

  Now, perhaps these head-hunters have the right idea. Who knows? Charles Darwin once said that it isn’t so much the Little Things in Life which count as the Little Life in Things. The less life there is in a man, the happier he is, provided there aren’t mosquitoes in the room and he can get his head comfortable. (If Charles Darwin didn’t say that, it is the first thing he didn’t say.)

  People often come to me and ask what I would recommend for this and that, and I ask them, “This and that what?” And they go away sadly and think me a very wise man. I am not a wise man. I am just a simple man. “Simple Simon” they used to call me, until they found out that my name is Robert. I take Life as it comes, and although I grouse a great deal and sometimes lie on the floor and kick and scream and refuse to eat my supper, I find that taking Life as it comes is the only way to meet it. It isn’t a very satisfactory way, but is the only way. (I should be very glad to try any other way that anyone can suggest. I certainly am sick of this one.)

  Once upon a time, in a very far-away land, before men grew into the little boys they are now (Emerson once said that a little boy is just the lengthened shadow of one man), there was a very, very brave Knight who had a very, very definite yen for a beautiful Princess who lived in a far-away castle (very, very far away, I mean).

  Now, there was also in this same land a Magician who could do wonders with a rabbit. People came from far and near to watch him at his egg-breaking and card-dropping, and now and again someone from the country would cry out, “Pfui!” But for the most part he was held to be as good as that feller who came down from Boston once. And, by one of those strange oddments of Fate which so often bring people together from the ends of the earth, the Magician was also in love with the very, very lovely Princess who lived you-know-where.

  And it happened that the Knight went riding forth one day on his milk-white charger (or, at any rate, he had been milk-white until he thought it would be comical to lie down and roll in his stall) and set out to find the Princess, whom he still though the loveliest lady he had ever seen, although he had not yet seen her. He was a little in doubt as to which direction to take, for the Princess’ castle, besides being very, very far away, was very, very hazy in the Knight’s mind, he having heard of it only as “the Princess’ castle” with no mention of its location. That’s nothing to go by.

  Now, at the same hour, the Magician himself was setting out on a horse he had brought out of a silk hat, bent on the same errand as the Knight – to get that Princess. And he, too, knew no more of where he was going than did the Knight – with the result that, after riding about in circles for three years, they both ended up at the same inn, eight miles from the town from which they started.

  Now, the Knight was very fond of magic and the Magician was very fond of Knights. So, after a few tankards of mead together, the Magician got out his kit and began to pull paper roses out of the landlord’s neck, much to the delight of everyone present except the landlord, who said that it was done with mirrors.

  And so the Knight and the Magician became bosom friends and forgot about the very, very lovely Princess, and the Knight took the Magician home with him to his castle, so that every evening he could have another sleight-of-hand show. And the Princess, who by this time had got pretty sick of waiting, went back to her husband – who, it must be admitted, was a little disappointed at the way things had turned out. Now, this little fable shows us that Success may be one of two things: first, getting what we want; and second, not getting what we want.

  It was Voltaire who is reported to have said: Plus ça change – plus ça reste,” meaning, “There isn’t much sense in doing anything these days.” Perhaps it wasn’t Voltaire, and perhaps that isn’t what the French means; but the angle is right. Can you say the same of yourself?

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  How the Doggie Goes

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  A well-known goldfish once referred to someone as having no more privacy than Irvin Cobb, but I would like to bet that the most publicly mauled and openly examined human being in the country today is the child of three. A child of three cannot raise its chubby fist to its mouth to remove a piece of carpet which it is through eating without being made the subject of a psychological seminar of child-welfare experts, and written up, along with five hundred other children of three who have put thei
r hands to their mouths for the same reason, in a paper entitled: The Ratio of Mouth-Thumbing in Children of Sub-School Age in Its Relation to Carpet-Eating.

  Now they have begun to examine children to see why they say “I won’t!” when Mummy asks them to tell nice Mrs. Kalbfleisch what the mooley-cow says. Up until now when a child has said “I won’t!” to such a demand it has seemed merely that it was the only possible reply to make. Just why a person, simply because he is only two years old, should feel any obligation to tell Mrs. Kalbfleisch what the mooley-cow says, is a mystery which any open-minded observer has difficulty in fathoming.

  Who wouldn’t say “I won’t!” and pretty sharply, too, if asked to say “Moo-oo!” to Mrs. Kalbfleisch? Is there anything Strange in a child’s making the same reply? But the child-welfare people seem to think that the matter has to be gone into. They took children ranging in age from eighteen to forty-eight months (who probably, in the first place, were pretty sore at being dragged in from the sand pile and old fish just to answer a lot of questions) and subjected them, according to the report, to “2,352 items of a verbal nature and 2,057 requiring some degree of physical reaction.” That must have taken the best part of an afternoon and I guess that along about four thirty there must have been quite a bit of snarling and sulking going on, even among the examiners. I know, if I had been on the grille, what one of my 2,057 physical reactions would have been and it would have landed squarely between somebody’s eyes.

  “In each case,” continues the report, “the child’s resistance to the test was carefully recorded as one of the four criteria. Some children simply ignored the question.” (Those children will go far. They are the white hopes of the future generation.) “Others verbally resisted with a shrill but determined ‘I won’t tell you!’” (The more excitable type, on the right track, but using up too much nervous energy in making their point. They should be told to watch the ones who simply ignored the questions and pattern after them.) “A third group resisted physically by running from the room or scampering into a corner.” (This would have been my own personal reaction as a child, or even now for that matter, and it is a trait which has got me nowhere, as you have to come back sooner or later and there they are with the question again.) “Still others indicated inability to answer by whining ‘I can’t’ or ‘I don’t know.’” (This was probably a lie on the part of the children, but it is a pretty good way out. You get the reputation for being stupid, but after a while you are let alone. I would say that the best methods were the first and the last, either ignoring the thing entirely or saying “I don’t know.” If you say “I won’t” or scamper into a corner it just eggs the examiners on.)

  The tests included the fitting of geometrical figures into a special form board (“I can’t” would be my answer right now); attaching limbs to the body of a manikin; putting square and round pegs into a perforated board; responding to such commands as “Stand on your left foot” or “Cross your feet” (to be ignored unless the examiner added “please”); recognizing one’s self in a mirror (a great deal of fun could be had with the examiner by saying “I never saw this person before in my life,” and sticking to it); fitting a nest of cubes together (Oh, hell! You might as well do that one for them!); and answering “What does a doggie say?” and “What mews?” To the question “What mews?” you could kid along and say you haven’t seen a mewspaper that day, adding that no mews is good mews. This would confuse the examiner and perhaps make him discouraged enough to go home.

  Such questions as “What does the doggie say?” and “How does the mooley-cow go?” come in a group by themselves. In the first place, any self-respecting child should insist that the question be rephrased, using “dog” instead of “doggie” and “cow” instead of “mooley-cow.” This is simple justice. Then, if any answer is to be given at all (and I recommend against it), it should be delivered with considerable scorn as follows: “The dog doesn’t say anything. It barks, if that is what you mean.”

  Presumably the child, while it is at the business of learning to talk, is supposed to be learning the kind of talk it will have some use for in after years, otherwise it would be taught only to make gargling noises in its throat and phrases like “Glub-glub.” Now the chances are very small of its wanting ever to say “Bow-wow” in ordinary conversation unless it is going to give imitations when it grows up or else is planning to drink heavily. So why make it say “Bow-wow” in answer to the dog question, especially as that isn’t what a dog says anyway? No child should allow itself to be made a fool of like that.

  I personally was made to see the error of this system by a very small child who took matters into his own hands and made a fool out of me even before I had begun to do it for myself. When I would ask him what the dog said, he would reply “Moo-oo,” and when I persisted, he would change it to “Toot-toot” and “Tick-tick.”

  At first I thought I had a cretin on my hands and got to brooding over it. Then one day, when I had got “Bow-wow” as an answer to what the “choo-choo train” said, I detected a slight twinkle, not unmixed with scorn, in the child’s eye, and as he walked off, a trifle unsteadily, I was sure that I heard a hoarse guttural laugh, not unlike what the goat says. So I stopped asking him to imitate animals and machines and took him to ball games instead. It has since transpired that he knew what he was doing and was planning to start throwing things at me if I had gone on much longer.

  I will say this for the Child Development Institute, however. The conclusions which they made from their investigations were that the children had been asked to do so many things during the day, usually prefaced with “Come on. Junior. Won’t you, please?” or told to “say please” or “say thank you,” that they just simply got so damned sick of the whole silly mess that they refused to do anything. Or, in the words of the report, “a total of 161 resistances were noted. . . . The specific question, ‘What is your name?’ was resisted nine times out of a hundred, probably because the child’s previous experience in being asked his name on each and every occasion by well-meaning adults has already conditioned him negatively to this question.”

  Although the wording of the foregoing is a bit formal, it is very sensible. It says “conditioned him negatively” instead of “pretty damned sick of it,” but the meaning is the same. Sometime I would like to get a group of children to ask a lot of silly questions of one grown-up at a time, such as “What is your name?” and “How does the bossy go?” and see just how long it would be before the grown-ups were down on the floor kicking and screaming, or, along with me, scampering into a corner. Then perhaps we would all begin at scratch again and live and let live.

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  Here You Are—

  Taxi!”

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  It looks now, or rather it did the last time I looked, as if taxicabs in New York were going to be all put under one management and one franchise, like gas mains and trolley cars. Before this plan goes into effect, I have a few words that I would like to say to the Committee in Charge. If the members of the Committee wish, they may leave the room while I am talking.

  I want taxicabs to be more standardized. I want to know, when I hail a cab at night, just what sort of conveyance it is that I am going to get into. Many’s the time I have stepped out into the street on a dark night all dressed up in my pretty things and raised my gold-headed cane with an imperious gesture signifying that I am ready, nay eager, to be carried somewhere in considerable splendor, only to find, on entering the first cab which stops for me, that I am in the old sleigh which used to stand up in the attic at Grandpa’s barn in Millbury. How they ever got it down to New York I don’t know.

  I know that it is Grandpa’s old sleigh by the musty smell inside. If you can tell me why some taxicabs, with motors and exhaust pipes and complete transmissions, should smell of horses and old oats and ancient whip sockets, I will – well, I will be much obliged. (A pretty weak return for all your trouble, I realize.) I have found myself in
so-called taxicabs whose heavy plush seats, with nice big holes in the middle in which to hide from the other boys, have had every accessory of the old-time surrey except the horse. And the horse had been there only a few hours before, I am sure. Sometimes there is even a lap robe, one of those old gray lap robes which, on being unfolded, always were found to contain a handful of corn kernels and some bits of leghorn fluff. What I want to know is, are these really old surreys which have had motors installed, or is it all my imagination and am I going through a form of second childhood? If it is the latter, I want to do something about it right away before it goes any farther. Otherwise I may start clucking at an imaginary horse before long.

  This is the sort of thing that I want to avoid when they get around to standardizing taxicabs. I want to have it so that I can hail a cab at night and not be taken for a straw ride. I want to know what it is that I am getting into.

  Of course, you can always count on finding yourself in one of these musty ghosts of an elder day if you take one of the cabs forced on you by the doorman at any of our most exclusive hotels. We call ourselves a free nation, and yet we let ourselves be told what cabs we can and can’t take by a man at a hotel door, simply because he has a drum major’s uniform on. The ritzier the hotel, the worse, and the more expensive, are the cabs standing in its own hack stand, and if you try to hail a passing cab which looks as if it might have been built after 1900, the doorman will be very, very cross with you and make you go back into the hotel and come out again all over. I once got quite independent when a doorman told me that I couldn’t take the cab I wanted and I stepped out into the street to take it, his orders to the contrary notwithstanding. The only trouble with my revolution was that the cab I wanted hadn’t seen me hail it and drove right by, and I was left standing in two inches of slush with nothing at all to ride in. So I had to make believe that I was going across the street anyway, a process which almost resulted in complete annihilation and in losing one shoe.

 

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