I say cruel advisedly, because up to a certain age children are
naturally more cruel than tigers. Civilization has provided them
with tools, as it were, for practicing cruelty, whereas the tiger
must rely only on his teeth and his bare claws. So you looked
round, feeling that the shadow of an impending doom encompassed
you, and then you realized that for no telling how long the teacher
had been standing just behind you, reading over your shoulder.

And at home were you caught in the act of reading them, or--what
from the parental standpoint was almost as bad--in the act of
harboring them? I was. Housecleaning times, when they found them
hidden under furniture or tucked away on the back shelves of
pantry closets, I was paddled until I had the feelings of a slice
of hot, buttered toast somewhat scorched on the under side. And
each time, having been paddled, I was admonished that boys who
read dime novels--only they weren't dime novels at all but cost
uniformly five cents a copy--always came to a bad end, growing up
to be criminals or Republicans or something equally abhorrent.
And I was urged to read books which would help me to shape my
career in a proper course. Such books were put into my hands,
and I loathed them. I know now why when I grew up my gorge rose
and my appetite turned against so-called classics. Their style
was so much like the style of the books which older people wanted
me to read when I was in my early teens.

Such were the specious statements advanced by the oldsters. And
we had no reply for their argument, or if we had one could not
find the language in which to couch it. Besides there was another
and a deeper reason. A boy, being what he is, the most sensitive