"They would do it execrably."
"I dare say; but that would not matter in the least. The book should be bound in leather and provided with serviceable clasps, as well as with a couple of inner pockets for maps and charts. The maps should contain plenty of sea, with monsters rising from it—leviathans and sea-serpents— as they do in Speed's map of Cornwall which hangs in the hall."
"Your book will need a window-seat to hold it."
"Ah, now you talk intelligently! It was designed for a window-seat, and its fortunate possessor will take care to provide one. Have you any further objections?"
"Only this: that a book of such a size written by one man (I make the objection as little personal as I can) must perforce contain many dull pages."
"Hundreds of them; whole reams of dull pages."
"They will be skipped."
"They will be inserted with that object."
"Oh!"
"It is one of the conditions of becoming a classic."