"Can't say I have."
The slight man smiled sympathetically.
"I get a great deal of pleasure from books," he went on. "Bachelor.
Marvelous solace. May know Wordsworth's famous lines, eh? 'Books we know
are a substantial world,' etc. Perhaps you have read something of Thomas
Love Peacock?"
"Never heard of him."
"Ah! Missed a great deal. Wonderful satirist, that. But still, I must admit that neither he nor Miss Austen are common. Now there's Mark Twain—for general reading, rain or shine, can't be beaten. American to the core, sir. Smacks of the soil. Perhaps he missed any warm love interest—but a delightful humorist, sir. You read him regularly, I presume?"
"Can't say I do."
"Of course, sir, books are not all. I agree with our old friend,
Montaigne, about that. By the way, which do you prefer, Dickens or
Thackeray?"
"Can't say, sir. They're strangers to me."
"Perhaps you've heard of a man named Walter Scott. As his name implies, he was born in Scotland. He wrote books, you know—novels, stories. Rather good, eh? Human interest—wholesome reading—and all that sort of thing."
"Don't recall him."