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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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tease them preposterously about things that didn't exist, make believe he thought that something had happened that never had and that he knew never had. He would speak to them about such an event, and get them explaining and expostulating on it. I discovered that in him very early, but that isn't sadistic. When he and I were young that kind of action had a name, which I can't remember. It wasn't called kidding, but a word that preceded kidding in the slang vocabulary of the young. It was a sort of recognized form of social interchange among the young. It was the thing to do. It was just plain teasing, such as “What were you doing with Pat Murphy down at the flower show?” The answer would be a hurried, “I don't go to the flower show! You know that I never went anywhere with Pat Murphy! What do you mean?” It was that type of thing.

Roosevelt did that kind of thing. He carried over into his adult life that pattern which had been a fashionable pattern of interchange in the nineties when he was young. It was as much of a fad as the adolescents of today employ when they speak hog latin. You can't make out what they're saying. In our youth it was this type of kidding. To be clever at it was regarded as a great





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