"What books would you advise your pupils to read?" asked Mac.
"In their proper sequence . . . Comic Cuts, Deadwood Dick, John Bull,
Answers, Pearson's Weekly, Boy's Own Paper, Scout, Treasure Island,
King Solomon's Mines, White Fang, The Call of the Wild, The Invisible
Man, practically anything of Jack London, Rider Haggard, Conan Doyle,
Kipling."
"And serious literature?"
"All literature is serious, Mac."
"I mean Dr. Johnson, Swift, Bunyan, Milton, Dryden, and that lot," said
Mac.
I smiled.
"Mac, I want you to answer this question: have you read Boswell's Life of Johnson?"
"Extracts," he admitted awkwardly.
"Bunyan's Life and Death of Mr. Badman?"
"No."