If you go home early, before the baby is put to bed, you will find him trying to crawl along the floor, or trying to eat the pattern in the carpet. He will look at you out of his pale, little, blue eyes and reach his skinny arms toward you.
See if that does not make you glad that you tried the baby experiment.
Gradually the thin body will get fatter, and the small, busy mouth will begin a mumbling language of its own. The old nurse will pretend to understand everything it says and will insist that it knows your name.
The first tooth piercing the heated, suffering gum; the first feeble steps with the help of a chair; the first tottering effort all alone, with arms outstretched toward you, ending in a flabby collapse, will delight you more than much experimenting with race horses, if you are the right sort of man.
It will not be long before you will decide that the bringing up of babies is your destiny, and a good one.
But when you bring a wife into the house, and she brings you other babies, thin or fat, of your own, don't forget the original thin Jimmy baby. Provide for the old nurse and for the youngster. Say to your wife:
"Be fond of that Jimmy baby, for it was he who taught me that I could not get along without you."
[End Project Gutenberg Etext of Editorials from the Hearst
Newspapers by Arthur Brisbane]