He handed a package of cigarettes to Harvey, who thanked him and shook his head.
“Father and Dick do the smoking for our family.”
“You’ll be along in time,” replied the other; “cigarettes aren’t good for some folks and I’m one of ’em, which explains why I smoke ’em. You know that’s the basic principle of human nature; the way to make a person do a thing is first to convince him he shouldn’t do it. It shines out in those beautiful lines of Shakespeare or Milton, I forget which:
‘I ne’er would have been in this condition
But for mother’s prohibition.’”
“That’s clever in its way, because of the profound truth involved,” remarked the New Yorker, “but for fine, delicate fancy it does not equal that quatrain:
‘This road is not passable,
It is hardly jackassable,
And you who do travel it
Should turn to and gravel it.’”