“After-Bedtime Stories: How Georgie Dog Gets the Rubbers on the Guest Room Bed” (E6)

• Originally printed: Life Magazine, July 15, 1920
• First reprinted in: Love Conquers All
• Original Byline: Robert C. Benchley

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Commentary:
Reprinted in Love Conquers All as part of a diptych with E7 (“How Lillian Mosquito Projects Her Voice”), we embark on a little field trip to Old Mother Nature’s nursery, where anthropomorphic auditors gather each day for a series of seminars in mischief making. Georgie Dog relates with relish his best practices for doing one’s worst with sodden footwear. A perverse peek at the author’s proto-sitcom universe from the perspective of the kind of domestic chaos agent so apt to addle the Benchleyan Little Man’s intimations of harmony.

Favourite moment:
“And sure enough, in came Georgie Dog, wagging his entire torso in a paroxysm of camaraderie, even though everyone knew that he had no use for Waldo Lizard.”

Reprint Notes:

• Title changed to “Animal Stories: Part I – Georgie Dog”
• Cartoon of Georgie not reprinted in Love Conquers All – not by Gluyas Williams