Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing--'

"Is n't this exactly our case?" she asked, interrupting herself for no
other purpose than to prolong the passage she was reading.

"Truly," I replied, trying hard to hide a note of eagerness in my
voice, for I had kept my battery masked these many months, "only Lamb
wanted an old folio, whereas we need a new car. I have driven that old
machine for five years and it was second-hand to begin with."

I watched for the effect of the shot, but evidently I had not got the
range, for she was saying.

"Is there a sweeter bit in all of 'Elia' than this, do you think"?

"'--And when the old bookseller with some grumbling opened his shop,
and by the twinkling taper (for he was setting bedwards) lighted out
the relic from his dusty treasures--and when you lugged it home,
wishing it were twice as cumbersome--'"

She had paused again. To know when to pause! how to make the most of
your author! to draw out the linked sweetness of a passage to its
longest--there reads your loving reader!

"You see," laying her hand on mine, "old books and old friends are
best, and I should think you had really rather have a nice safe old car
than any new one. Thieves don't take old cars, as you know. And you
can't insure them, that's a comfort! And cars don't skid and collide
just because they are _old_, do they? And you never have to scold the
children about the paint and--and the old thing _does_ go--what do you