"Do they?" asked Mr. Hay. Then a moment later he asked: "Did you ever read one of them?"
The interrupter admitted that he had not.
"Till you do," said Mr. Hay, "you should hesitate to pass judgment. The moral standards of the dime novel are always of the highest. They are even heroic in their insistence upon honor and self-sacrifice in behalf of the right. They are as chivalric as the code of honor itself. There is never anything unclean in the dime novel, never anything that even squints at toleration of immorality. The man beset by foes is always gallantly supported by resolute fellows with pistols in their hands which they are ready to use in behalf of righteousness. The maiden in trouble has champions galore, whose language may not always square itself with Sunday School standards, but whose devotion to the task of protecting innocence is altogether inspiring."
"What about their literary quality?" asked some one in the group.
"It is very bad, I suppose," answered Edwin Booth, "but that isn't the quality they put to the front. I have read dozens, scores, hundreds of them, and I have never challenged their literary quality, because that is something to which they lay no claim. Their strength lies in dramatic situations, and they abound in these. I must say that some of them are far better, stronger, and more appealing than are many of those that have made the fortune of successful plays."
"Do you read them for the sake of the dramatic situations, Mr. Booth?" some one asked.
"No. I read them for the sake of sleep," he replied. "I read them just as I play solitaire—to divert my mind and to bring repose to me."