Leighton nodded. "The Bible is essential but not educative until you learn to depolarize it. Shakspere—you'll begin to read Shakspere in about ten years. Walter Scott. Scott—well—Scott is just a bright ax for the neck of time. What else did you read?"
"I read 'The City of God' but not very often."
For a second Leighton stared; then he burst into laughter. He checked himself suddenly.
"Boy," he said, "don't misunderstand. I'm not laughing at the book; I'm laughing at your reading St. Augustine even 'not very often!'"
"Why shouldn't you laugh?" asked Lewis, simply. "I laughed sometimes. I remember I always laughed at the heading to the twenty-first book."
"Did you?" said Leighton, a look of wonder in his face. "What is it? I don't quite recollect the headings that far."
"'Of the eternal punishment of the wicked in hell, and of the various objections urged against it,'" quoted Lewis, smiling.
Leighton grinned his appreciation.
"There is a flavor about unconscious humor," he said, "that's like the bouquet to a fine wine: only the initiated catch it. I'm afraid you were an educated person even before you read St. Augustine. Did he put up a good case for torment? You see, you've found me out. I've never read him."
"His case was weak in spots," said Lewis. "His examples from nature, for instance, proving that bodies may remain unconsumed and alive in fire."