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in his tease. You mention, for instance, the time that he asked Wickard, while Cheater Davis was Food Administrator and in trouble and Wickard was Secretary of Agriculture whether he, Wickard, would like to be Food Administrator. As you say, I whirled around and said to Wickard, “Don't answer that question!” You're right, that wasn't gentle teasing. My advice to Wickard was based on my instinct of not building up a thing like that too much by taking it into account. It's one of the occasions when you should either make believe you're deaf, or have a good laugh - just laugh and say nothing. Wickard had a trick of trying to make reasonable answers. Wickard wasn't quick and if he had answered it, he would have answered it seriously. Then that would have given Roosevelt another place to tease him and it might have built the thing up into an aggravation which wasn't necessary, might have built up into something that would really leave its marks, its scars. I was afraid he would answer it and start making an explanation. I remember that. My reply was purely instincitive. I must have thought then that the President was baiting him.

So it is true that he could tease and did tease. I always knew that he was a teaser, that part of his sense of humor was involved in teasing people. He would