Shakespeare
have been glad of a little pleasure—innocent, profitable, and entertaining. However, if you think I am not capable of—"
"What do you want to read?"
"What would you like me to read?"
"Miss Sakers lent me this." She handed me a paper-covered volume, entitled, "The Murglow Mystery; or, The Stain on the Staircase."
"Trash like this is not literature," I said. However, to please her, I glanced at the first page. Half an hour later I said that I should be very sorry to read a book of that stamp out loud.
"Then why do you go on reading it to yourself?"
"Strictly speaking, I am not reading it. I am glancing at it."
When Eliza got up to go to bed, an hour afterward, she asked me if I was still glancing. I kept my temper.
"Try not to be so infernally unreasonable," I said. "If Miss Sakers lends us a book, it is discourteous not to look at it."
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