“Well, well,” said Grandpapa soothingly, “you’ve got twice the brains of any of them, we know that. You get them from your mother. Not that brains ever did her any good, poor soul—she was unbalanced, as clever women generally are.”
“Am I unbalanced, Grandpapa?”
“Now that’s a bad habit,” said Grandpapa, suddenly extending a gnarled forefinger like a little twisted bit of old ivory, as though about to lay it on some objectionable insect. “That’s a very bad habit, Lyddie, me dear. Don’t refer everything back to yourself. It bores people. Do it in your own mind,” said Grandpapa, chuckling; “no doubt you won’t be able to help it—but not out loud. When someone tells you that Mrs. Smith dresses better than she walks, don’t immediately go and say, like nine women out of every ten, ‘Do I dress better than I walk?’”
Grandpapa assumed a piping falsetto designed to simulate a feminine voice: “And don’t say, either, ‘Oh, that reminds me of what was said about me this time nine years ago.’ People don’t want to hear about you—they want to hear about themselves.”
“Always, Grandpapa?” said Lydia, dismayed.
“Practically always, and when you’ve grasped that, you’ve got the secret of success. Always let the other people talk about themselves.”
Lydia’s memory was a retentive one, and to the end of her life, at the oddest, most unexpected moments, Grandpapa’s aphorism, delivered in the very tones of his cracked, sardonic old voice, was destined to return to her, always with increased appreciation of its cynical penetration into the weakness of human nature:
“Always let the other people talk about themselves.”
With the advent of Aunt Beryl and the lamp, needless to say, Grandpapa ceased imparting these educational items to Lydia.
He listened to Aunt Beryl’s account of Mrs. Jackson’s asthma, agreed that Uncle George was late back from the office, and became deaf and vacant-eyed when Aunt Beryl reproachfully said that Shamrock had brought a live crab into the front hall, and upset the girl’s temper. At seven o’clock, Aunt Beryl and Lydia went away to don evening blouses, and, in the case of Aunt Beryl, a “dressy” black silk skirt, and half an hour later they all had supper in the dining-room.