“But you—?”
“Well, I read a good deal. Quite a little. Shakespeare and geography and a lot of stuff. I like reading.”
“And how do you place Nietzsche?” she gravely desired to know.
“?”
“Nietzsche. You know—the German humorist.”
“Oh yes—uh—let me see now; he’s—uh—”
“Why, you remember, don’t you? Haeckel and he wrote the great musical comedy of the century. And Matisse did the music—Matisse and Rodin.”
“I haven’t been to it,” he said, vaguely. “…I don’t know much German. Course I know a few words, like Spricken Sie Dutch and Bitty, sir, that Rabin at the Souvenir Company—he’s a German Jew, I guess—learnt me…. But, say, isn’t Kipling great! Gee! when I read Kim I can imagine I’m hiking along one of those roads in India just like I was there—you know, all those magicians and so on…. Readin’s wonderful, ain’t it!”
“Um. Yes.”
“I bet you read an awful lot.”