“Suppose I don’t?”
“You’ll surely have a preference.”
“All right. I’ll try to. Go on.”
“Here’s Foul Play, by Charles Reade. It seems to have been a good deal read. Some of the paragraphs are marked with a pencil.”
“I think I’ve read it, but I’m not sure. It sounds like a murder story. No, let’s pass on that.”
“Well, here’s Mrs. Skaggs’ Husbands, by Bret Harte. Does that sound as if you’d like it?”
“‘Husbands!’ No. We don’t want to read about a woman who has husbands. Pass on that, too.”
“The next is very nicely bound and looks quite fresh and new, as if nobody had read it much. It’s called The Amazing Marriage.”
“Oh, pass on that! I had it once and stuck in the third chapter. The last time I went East somebody gave it to me to read on the train. I read three chapters and I was more amazed than anybody in sight. The porter was a fresh coon and I gave it to him as my revenge. I’ll bet it amazed him.”
“You don’t seem to have anything in the nature of a preference, so far. I wonder how this will suit you. Notre Dame de Paris, by Victor Hugo.”