_The Aunt_ (_reading from Catalogue_). "The absurd ambulations of
this antique person, and the equally absurd antics of her dog, need no
recapitulation." Here's "_Jack the Giant Killer_" next. Listen, BOBBY,
to what it says about him here. (_Reads._) "It is clearly the last
transmutation of the old British legend told by GEOFFREY of Monmouth,
of CORINEUS the Trojan, the companion of the Trojan BRUTUS, when
he first settled in Britain. But more than this"--I hope you're
listening, BOBBY?--"_more_ than this, it is quite evident, even to
the superficial student of Greek mythology, that many of the main
incidents and ornaments are borrowed from the tales of HESIOD and
HOMER." Think of that, now!

[_BOBBY thinks of it, with depression._

_The G.G._ (_before figure of Aladdin's Uncle selling new lamps for
old_). Here you are, you see! "_Ali Baba_," got 'em all here, you see.
Never read your "_Arabian Nights_," either! Is that the way they bring
up boys nowadays!

_Percy_. Well, the fact is, Grandfather, that unless a fellow
reads that kind of thing when he's _young_, he doesn't get a chance
afterwards.

_The Aunt_ (_still quoting_). "In the famous work," BOBBY, "by which
we know MASÛDI, he mentions the Persian Hezar Afsane-um-um-um,--nor
have commentators failed to notice that the occasion of the book
written for the Princess HOMAI resembles the story told in the Hebrew
Bible about ESTHER, her mother or grandmother, by some Persian Jew two
or three centuries B.C." Well, I never knew _that_ before!... This is