interest--but a delightful humorist, sir. You read him regularly, I
presume?"

"Can't say I do."

"Of course, sir, books are not all. I agree with our old friend,
Montaigne, about that. By the way, which do you prefer, Dickens or
Thackeray?"

"Can't say, sir. They're strangers to me."

"Perhaps you've heard of a man named Walter Scott. As his name implies,
he was born in Scotland. He wrote books, you know--novels, stories.
Rather good, eh? Human interest--wholesome reading--and all that sort of
thing."

"Don't recall him."

The slight man rose up in his seat. He bore down hard upon the stranger.

"Possibly," he suggested, "in the course of your deep and intimate
intercourse with men and affairs, you may recall the name of an
individual named Shakespeare."

"Yes, I think I remember."

"How about Macaulay, the greatest essayist in England, and Homer, the
prince of ancient poets, with seven birthplaces? Then there's Emerson
and Longfellow and Goethe and--"