The Unbending of Pretending.

Of course crowds are not essential to happiness, but happiness, after all, is only the X in an algebraical equation postulating the perfect synchronisation of the juices digestive and perceptive. This state of perfection can be attained just as easily in dinner suit or diving suit.

When two or more gather to gibber, they are only pretending that they are not afraid of the big bad wolf of loneliness which put the hoodoo on Adam and all subsequent accretions. But

There is comfort in pretending,
In imaginative wending,
If such practice means suspending
Self-compassion, and that woozy
Mental state that makes men “foozey.”
There is comfort in the knowing
That your fellow-men are going
In the same direction, sewing
Crops of errors, like “yours truly,”
Which will sprout in ranks unruly.
So let's shelter from our folly
Underneath a common “brolly,”
And pretend we're “awfully jolly,”
For, in spite of dirty weather,
We can all get wet together.
Oh, in rain or sunshine scorchin',
We are fellows in misfortune,
And we've got to take our portion
To the limit of our tether,

So—let's take it all together.

So, dear readers (or reader, as the case may be), if you are a boy scout, a buffalo, an elk, a whelk, a froth-blower, or a “big brother,” stick to your particular accretion of safety-seeking souls, for if love makes the world go round, Society solders the joints.