“COUNTED them? Mercy! What for?”
Galusha's spectacles gleamed. “For fun,” he said.
On another occasion his aunt found him still poring over Ancient Nineveh and Its Remains; it was the fifth volume now, however.
“Do you LIKE to read that?” she asked.
“Yes, Auntie. I've read four already and, counting this one, there are five more to read.”
Now Aunt Clarissa had never read Ancient Nineveh herself. Her bookseller had assured her that it was a very remarkable set, quite rare and complete. “We seldom pick one up nowadays, Mrs. Bute. You should buy it.” So Aunt Clarissa bought it, but she had never thought of reading it.
She looked down over her nephew's shoulder at the broad page with its diagram of an ancient temple and its drawings of human-headed bulls in bas-relief.
“Why do you find it so interesting?” she asked.
Galusha looked up at her. His eyes were alight with excitement.
“They dig those things up over there,” he said, pointing to one of the bulls. “It's all sand and rocks—and everything, but they send an expedition and the people in it figure out where the city or the temple or whatever it is ought to be, and then they dig and—and find it. And you can't tell WHAT you'll find, exactly. And sometimes you don't find much of anything.”