She was immediately on the defensive. “I certainly am. You must have seen that she doesn’t know how!”
“Nonsense! You’re talking just plain nonsense!”
“You might think so. A good many people would. But I wish you would tell me how many people you know who really laugh right.”
“Right! There’s no question of laughing right. People laugh when there’s an occasion for laughing.”
“They don’t really laugh, because they don’t know how. And very few people know anything about the right occasion to laugh.”
“Meaning——”
“I can make it quite plain. You see, it’s a custom to teach children how to talk, and some are taught how to sing. I say nothing about the silly things that are taught to ‘speak pieces,’ Heaven help them. They are taught these things because they wouldn’t know how to do them right if they were left to themselves. They try to talk and they try to sing, and they get it all wrong. And then they are taught.”
“That’s an entirely different matter.”
“Not at all. When they try to laugh they get it all wrong, too, but nobody thinks it’s necessary to teach them any better. You can see I’m perfectly right.”
“I think what you say is quite absurd.”