My World and Welcome to It

When the noise from the freight elevator beside his office becomes intolerable, John decides to try working at home, only to be confronted by Lydia, who is unhappy with her seat at school. She decides to run away into Manhattan to stay with her bohemian Aunt Kate--accompanied by her worried father.

In order to get closer to her father, with whom she seems to share little in common, Lydia learns how to play chess from her mother and begins seriously beating John at the game. He enlists the help of Oscar, a chess expert who works at The Manhattanite, to beat her, but to no avail. So John imagines the results of three increasingly bizarre plans to win out over his daughter.

John has dog problems with just about everyone: Greeley, over a magazine piece about his childhood family pet who bit people; Ellen, who makes him sleep on the couch after an argument about animals' eyes; and Lydia, who wants a new puppy. Then Christabel, the family's ancient poodle, becomes ill, and everyone seems to hold John at fault.

When Lydia comes down with a bad cold, John takes the opportunity to try to show her that people with vivid imaginations are better off than those who approach life from a more ""realistic"" point of view. The story of ""The Unicorn in the Garden"" doesn't seem to work, so John relates the story of his great-grandfather, who not only was a prolific storyteller but managed to get the fire department called out when he was trying to attend to young John's sniffles.

After Greeley once again fails to understand the humor in one of John's cartoons, John quits his job with The Manhattanite and returns home, where he begins to wonder what he'll do for money now. He settles on playing the stock market and fantasizes about a meeting with J.P. Morgan.

John, finding himself bothered by the ordinariness of his life, fantasizes about being involved in a tale of espionage involving pickle forks and a malevolent dragon.

Greeley rejects yet another of John's cartoons which he doesn't understand, one involving a seal in the bedroom of a married couple. Ellen and Lydia agree with Greeley, and when John tells Phil about his problem, Phil suggests the seal might represent John's mother who is visiting the Monroes. Naturally this provokes a fantasy in which John's mother, who showed up at the house wearing a sealskin coat, actually becomes a seal.

After being bitten by the family cat, Dimity Ann, John takes her away and leaves her in a new housing developement. Lydia believes the cat ran away because of a dislike for her, while Ellen's suspicions come nearer the truth. John fantasizes about being on trial before a real judge for his ""crime.""

The Monroe's new neighbor, Paul Morton, who is also a cartoonist, challenges John's more sophisticated humor by pitting him against the town's answer to Will Rogers, Zeph Leggin. To John's distress, Ellen and Lydia are taken with Zeph's more rustic humor, and even in his fantasy world John has trouble winning out.

The Monroes have a new maid who for some reason has a phobia about modern appliances, and Ellen tells John to be kind to her and keep up appearances while she's away. But the maid finds John, who is working in the attic, as distracting as the appliances.