Chapter II: The Postman

When my brother was small he wanted to be a postman because he wanted to knock double knocks; but no one who is grown up would want it, because there is no fun in spending your life in delivering letters to other people, other people’s letters are so dull.

Other people have such odd ways with their letters. Father even is cross when there is a letter for him and says “Confound the thing!—why can’t they leave me alone?” But my eldest sister waits for the postman and is miserable if he doesn’t bring her anything.

Some people lay their letters by their plates and go on eating. This seems to me extraordinary.

Some of our visitors who get letters say “Excuse me” before they read them, but others don’t.

When I think of the postman going on for ever and ever taking letters to other people I am convinced that he ought to have the O.B.E.

“ROSE”

THE CINEMA

One of the strange things to reflect about is what people did before the cinema was invented. My father was an old man before he ever saw a moving picture and when he was a boy there were none. He does not like them now because he says he always comes away with either a headache or a flea, but I like them excessively.

I like the serious ones best, but my brother Jack wants the comic ones. He can walk like Charlie Chaplin. He likes Mutt and Jeff too. I know a girl who was photographed by a cinema man while she was at Church Parade in the Park and the next week she saw it at a Picture Palace and recognized herself.

One kind of a film is always very dull and that is the kind that shows the King shaking hands with the Lord Mayor and people coming away from football matches. It is a very curious thing but nearly always when I get into a cinema this kind of film happens at once and goes on for a long time, so that it is very often too late to stay to the end of the story-film.

I wish they would turn more books into films. A girl I know lived in Paris and saw _The Count of Monte Cristo_ and it was splendid. Lots of books would make good films. The other day we all said what books we would most like to see on the movies. Two girls came to tea and one said _The Black Tulip_ and the other _Little Women_. Jack wanted _Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea_ and I think one of Mrs. Nesbit’s books like _The Enchanted Castle_ would be splendid.

One thing that I don’t like about the movies is that they give you too much time to read the short sentences in.

It is funny how a high wind always blows in American drawing-rooms in the cinema.

M.P.s when you see them on the movies going to the opening of Parliament always walk too fast.

“DANDELION”

HISTORICAL RHYMES