_Bobby_ (_disappointed_). Oh, then it _isn't_ Puss in Boots! _A Genial Grandfather_ (_pausing before "Crusoe and Friday"_). Well, PERCY, my boy, you know who _that_ is, at all events--eh? _Percy_. I suppose it is STANLEY--but it's not very like. _The G.G._ STANLEY!--Why, bless my soul, never heard of _Robinson Crusoe_ and his man _Friday_? _Percy_. Oh, I've _heard_ of them, of course--they come in Pantomimes--but I like more grown-up sort of books myself, you know. Is this girl asleep _She_? _The G.G._ No--at least--well, I expect it's "_The Sleeping Beauty_." You remember her, of course--all about the ball, and the glass slipper, and her father picking a rose when the hedge grew round the palace, eh? _Percy_. Ah, you see, Grandfather, you had more time for general reading than we get. (_He looks through a practicable cottage window._) Hallo, a Dog and a Cat. Not badly stuffed! _The G.G._ Why that must be "_Old Mother Hubbard_." (_Quoting from memory._) "Old Mother Hubbard sat in a cupboard, eating a Christmas pie--or a _bone_ was it?" _Percy_. Don't know. It's not in _Selections from British Poetry_, which we have to get up for "rep." _The Aunt_ (_reading from Catalogue_). "The absurd ambulations of this antique person, and the equally absurd antics of her dog, need no recapitulation." Here's "_Jack the Giant Killer_" next. Listen, BOBBY, to what it says about him here. (_Reads._) "It is clearly the last transmutation of the old British legend told by GEOFFREY of Monmouth, of CORINEUS the Trojan, the companion of the Trojan BRUTUS, when he first settled in Britain. But more than this"--I hope you're listening, BOBBY?--"_more_ than this, it is quite evident, even to the superficial student of Greek mythology, that many of the main incidents and ornaments are borrowed from the tales of HESIOD and HOMER." Think of that, now! [_BOBBY thinks of it, with depression._ _The G.G._ (_before figure of Aladdin's Uncle selling new lamps for old_). Here you are, you see! "_Ali Baba_," got 'em all here, you see. Never read your "_Arabian Nights_," either! Is that the way they bring up boys nowadays! _Percy_. Well, the fact is, Grandfather, that unless a fellow reads that kind of thing when he's _young_, he doesn't get a chance afterwards.