"
The old man answered him mildly:--
"I have learned to venerate books, Ned, and can no more bear to see
them abused than I could bear to be abused myself. It seems to me
like treating their writers and their subjects with scorn. If you
were to contemplate the venerable heads of the old knights with
my eyes and feelings, you would see why I wish to guard them from
everything like disrespect."
"Well, I beg their pardon--a thousand pardons! I meant no offence,
gran'pa--and can't help thinking that it's all a notion of yours,
your reverencing such old Turks and Spaniards that have been
dead a thousand years. They were very good people, no doubt, but
I'm thinking they've served their turn; and I see no more harm in
squatting upon their histories than in walking over their graves,
which, if I were in their country of Jericho--that was where they
lived, gran'pa, wa'n't it?--I should be very apt to do without
asking leave, I tell you."
Ned Hinkley purposely perverted his geography and history. There was
a spice of mischief in his composition, and he grinned good-naturedly
as he watched the increasing gravity upon the old man's face.
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