But no one should try to use it unless he is perfectly sure that everyone understands he is being humorous. We are going to take up the sense of humor -- our Little Group of Thinkers, you know -- in a serious way soon. But the Swami doesn't like Isis. Poor, dear Swami! She is a charlatan, he says. And she doesn't like him. "My dear," she said to me, "are you SURE he really goes into the Silences? Or does he just PRETEND to?" Isn't it awful about geniuses that way -- how jealous they ARE of each other? Especially psychics! We had two mediums the same evening a year or two ago who actually quarreled over which one of them a certain spirit control belonged to. THE SIMPLE HOME FESTIVALS DON'T you just love the simple old festivals, like Thanksgiving Day and Christmas? That's is one thing that Papa and Mamma and I agree about. And this year we had a very simple sort of Thanksgiving Day. Of course, it's rather a bore if you have to invite a lot of relations. But one must always sacrifice something to gain the worth-while things, mustn't one? And what is more worth while than simplicity? Simplicity! Simplicity! Isn't it truly WONDERFUL! Nearly every night before I go to bed I ask myself: "have I been simple and genuine today? Or have I FAILED? Papa always has two maiden aunts to Thanks- giving dinner. Dear old souls, I suppose, but frumps, you know. And Fothergil Finch was there, too. I asked poor dear Fothy, because otherwise he would have had to eat in some restaurant. I tried to be agreeable to Papa's aunts -- of course. I suppose they are my great-aunts, but I never felt REALLY related to them -- but how could he know how terribly unadvanced they are? Fothy's only real interests center about Art, you know. And if he had talked of Art it would have been better. But, as he told me later, he thought he should try to meet my people on their own ground and talk of something practical. Something with a direct bearing on life, you know. So he asked Aunt Evelyn what she thought of Trial Marriages. She didn't know exactly what he meant at first, but Aunt Fanny whispered something to her and she turned white and said, "Mercy!" Poor dear Fothy saw he must be on the wrong track, so he changed the subject and began to tell Aunt Fanny the plot of a new problem play. One of the sex ones, you know. "Heavens," said Aunt Fanny, and began to tremble. And they drew their chairs nearer together and each one took a bottle of smelling salts out of a little black bag, and they sat and trembled and smelled their salts and stared at him perfectly fascinated. This embarrassed Fothy, but he though his mistake had been in talking about anything artistic, like a play, so he changed the subject again. He told me afterward that he felt if he could get onto a really PRACTICAL subject all would go well. So he asked Aunt Evelyn what she thought about Genetics. "What are they?" asked Aunt Evelyn, her teeth chattering.