"Depends on the book," he said, with a bit of a laugh. "Accordin' to that, I get much or little. No; in these here summer days a man can't do much at books; the evenin's short, you see, and the days is long; and the days is full o' work. The winter's the time for readin'. I got hold o' a book last winter that was wuth a great deal o' time, and got it. I never liked a book better. That was Rollin's 'Ancient History.'"
"Ah!" said Mrs. Barclay. "So you enjoyed that?"
"Ever read it?"
"Yes."
"Didn't you enjoy it?"
"I believe I like Modern history better."
"I've read some o' that too," said he meditatively. "It ain't so different. 'Seems to me, folks is allays pretty much alike; only we call things by different names. Alexander the Great, now,—he warn't much different from Napoleon Buonaparte."
"Wasn't he a better man?" inquired Mr. Lenox, putting his head out at the door.
"Wall, I don' know; it's difficult, you know, to judge of folk's insides; but I don't make much count of a man that drinks himself to death at thirty."
"Haven't you any drinking in Shampuashuh?"