“Oh! many times when we have been warmly discussing these same matters,” came the reply. “But it seems as useless as water dropping on a stone. In the course of ages it may wear the stone away, but neither of us is likely to live to see the day. Mr. Loft is very bigoted, and has a false idea concerning boys and what they ought to read.”
“Still, he seems to be more civil to us nowadays,” observed Dick, with a gleam of amusement in his eye as he spoke.
“H’m! for a very good reason,” laughed Mr. Holwell. “Since you and your comrades started the Boys’ Library, with a select list of books, all approved by myself, Mr. Henry Fenwick, and several other gentlemen who love boys, Mr. Loft has been reading the handwriting on the wall. He begins to fear that if he keeps on thrusting his classical ideas of boys’ literature upon the patrons of the town library he may lose his job. So he believes it good policy to quiet down.”
“Let’s wander over a little closer to where Dan and Humbert are sitting, sir,” suggested Dick. “I’d just like to hear what they are saying, because from the way Dan is laying the law down I expect it’s about books and Mr. Loft’s ideas for boys. Dan, you know, is head and heels interested in that library of ours; and he fairly despises Mr. Loft. I’ve heard him call him a ‘human icicle’ many a time.”
“Just as you say, Dick,” consented Mr. Holwell, smiling at the apt designation given by Dan, for, regardless of the librarian’s intellectual gifts, it seemed to fit him.
When the two sauntered near the place where the boys were talking, Dan was getting up as though to leave. He did not notice the presence of Mr. Holwell, but was shaking his forefinger in Humbert’s face. That individual looked worried, as though he felt the crushing force of the arguments Dan had been heaping up before him.
“I tell you, Humbert Loft,” they heard Dan say with emphasis, “boys can’t be treated as if they were machines. Boys have feelings, and they know what kind of reading they want every time. Their books have got to have a certain amount of good, lively, healthy adventure in ’em, or else nobody’s going to bother spending his time over ’em.”
“But my uncle says——” began Humbert feebly, when Dan interrupted him.
“Oh! what does your uncle know about boys, tell me? I guess when he was a baby they must have fed him on Latin verbs and Greek nouns. All he thinks of is stuffing us boys with ‘standard literature,’ as he calls it, when we’re just shouting for things that appeal to our boy natures.”
“But what he wants boys to read are the books that all cultivated people consider the finest fruits of human endeavor!” urged Humbert, desperately.