"THAT'S PLAY-ACTIN', THAT IS—AND I DON'T 'OLD WITH IT NOHOW!"
The G. G. No—at least—well, I expect it's The Sleeping Beauty. You remember her, of course—all about the ball, and the glass slipper, and her father picking a rose when the hedge grew round the palace, eh?
Percy. Ah, you see, Grandfather, you had more time for general reading than we get. (He looks through a practicable cottage window.) Hallo, a Dog and a Cat. Not badly stuffed!
The G. G. Why, that must be Old Mother Hubbard. (Quoting from memory.) "Old Mother Hubbard sat in a cupboard, eating a Christmas pie—or a bone was it?"
Percy. Don't know. It's not in Selections from British Poetry, which we have to get up for "rep."
The Aunt (reading from Catalogue). "The absurd ambulations of this antique person, and the equally absurd antics of her dog, need no recapitulation." Here's Jack the Giant Killer, next. Listen, Bobby, to what it says about him here. (Reads.) "It is clearly the last transmutation of the old British legend told by Geoffrey of Monmouth, of Corineus, the Trojan, the companion of the Trojan Brutus, when he first settled in Britain. But more than this"—I hope you're listening, Bobby?—"more than this, it is quite evident, even to the superficial student of Greek mythology, that many of the main incidents and ornaments are borrowed from the tales of Hesiod and Homer." Think of that, now!
[Bobby thinks of it, with depression.
The G. G. (before figure of Aladdin's Uncle selling new lamps for old). Here you are, you see! "Ali Baba," got 'em all here, you see. Never read your Arabian Nights, either! Is that the way they bring up boys nowadays!
Percy. Well, the fact is, Grandfather, that unless a fellow reads that kind of thing when he's young, he doesn't get a chance afterwards.