TARLETON. Why, man, it's the beginning of education.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. On the contrary, it's the end of it. How can you
dare teach a man to read until youve taught him everything else first?

JOHNNY. _[intercepting his father's reply by coming out of the swing
and taking the floor]_ Leave it at that. Thats good sense. Anybody
on for a game of tennis?

BENTLEY. Oh, lets have some more improving conversation. Wouldnt you
rather, Johnny?

JOHNNY. If you ask me, no.

TARLETON. Johnny: you dont cultivate your mind. You dont read.

JOHNNY. _[coming between his mother and Lord Summerhays, book in
hand]_ Yes I do. I bet you what you like that, page for page, I read
more than you, though I dont talk about it so much. Only, I dont read
the same books. I like a book with a plot in it. You like a book
with nothing in it but some idea that the chap that writes it keeps
worrying, like a cat chasing its own tail. I can stand a little of
it, just as I can stand watching the cat for two minutes, say, when
Ive nothing better to do. But a man soon gets fed up with that sort
of thing. The fact is, you look on an author as a sort of god. _I_
look on him as a man that I pay to do a certain thing for me. I pay
him to amuse me and to take me out of myself and make me forget.

TARLETON. No. Wrong principle. You want to remember. Read Kipling.
"Lest we forget."