When I find time
to go out walking with them, they do their best to lose me, and whenever
we divide off into teams for a game of ball, each side insists on my
going with the other side. I have made up my mind that there is a time
for being with one's children and a time for letting them alone, and
that the proper time for being with them is when they are in trouble
and want you, and the proper time for letting them alone is when they
are happy and wish to be let alone. This I admit is the reverse of the
common practice, and probably there is something to be said for parents
who grow fond of their children's society when they, the parents, have
nothing else to do. As a rule, I have never obtruded myself on my boys,
being confident that natural affection and the recurrent need of
pocket-money would constitute a sufficient bond between us."
There was, in conclusion, one factor in his success upon which Wallabout
Smith would never fail to lay the most emphatic stress, and to which
Herr Grundschnitt attached equal importance. "Such fame," he would say,
"as has fallen to my share must be attributed in the very largest
measure to my wife.
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