since I left here, he'd be three hundred years old and in Betelguese when he laid the last one down!"
Judy laughs till it's a wonder Rags didn't hear her downstairs, and I hope he did.
"The ones I liked best," I goes on, checking over the list, "was 'The Three Musketeers,' 'Martin Eden,' 'Poe's Tales,' 'Sherlock Holmes,' and 'Huckleberry Finn,' Like 'em? I love 'em! I look on them books as my pals and I'll read 'em again and again. I'd as soon part with them as I would with my knees, especially that 'Huckleberry Finn'!"
"I thought you'd like that one," says Judy. "Now you must read 'Tom Sawyer,' another one of Mark Twain's, and"
"I'm going to read every story Mr. Mark Twain writes, as fast as they come out!" I interrupt. "Believe me, he tells a dude of a yarn. I've been boasting him to all my friends, because a man which can write like that deserves some encouragement!"
At this point Judy goes right off into a fit of laughing, which they do hear downstairs, and her mother calls her.
"Gale," she says, with her hand on my arm. "Eh—don't—don't say that about Mark Twain to anyone else—that—Oh, about encouraging him. Mark Twain is immortal!"
"There was nothing out of the way in the book I read," I says.
"Not immoral, immortal!" says Judy, getting up, still giggling. "And now I must go, Gale, or mother will be angry. Keep on reading good books. They ee a
