Tornado Pratt Read Online Free Page A

just seemed the natural order of things.
    I remember very distinctly the evening I suddenly became aware of Harvey reading. I was dressing to go out and I came into the living-room—we had a bedroom each and a big living-room which Harvey kept tidy—and I was about to ask Harvey something and suddenly the question flashed into my mind: why’s he always reading?
    For a while I just stood and watched him. He didn’t sprawl in his chair. He sat pretty near upright and he held the book neatly in his right hand with his fingers supporting the spine and his thumb holding the pages apart. When he’d read to the bottom of a page, he’d raise his left hand, pull his thumb out of the middle, turn over the page and then replace his thumb to keep the pages spread out. And suddenly I had a great desire to do the same. I asked him:
    “Is that a good book, Harvey?”
    “It is—by reputation. But I suspect its beauties are too subtle for me.”
    “Could you recommend a good book for me, Harvey? I reckon I’ll stay in this evening and read.”
    “Well, that’s a very commendable resolution, Tornado. I think I know just the thing.”
    Harvey went to one of his bookcases and came back with a thin little volume which he handed to me.
    “This is a splendid book. I’m sure you’ll like it.”
    Well, I took that book and I parked myself in the other armchair and I started to read it. It took me about twenty minutes to read the first page. I didn’t understand more than about half of the words and I couldn’t make anything at all of their arrangement . The sentences were so long that by the time I’d got to the end of one I’d forgotten the beginning and I had to go back and start again. Moreover, my mind kept wandering so that I’d find my eyes were moving along the lines of print and I might even be saying the words under my breath but I’d be thinking of something different.
    Suddenly Harvey asked:
    “What do you think of it, Tornado?”
    “Why—it’s a mighty interesting book, Harvey.”
    “You don’t feel, as some critics do, that an element of renaissance frivolity tends to undermine it?”
    “Come again?”
    “You don’t feel—”
    But then something surprising happened. Harvey broke off andmade a sort of gurgling noise. The next moment he stood up and staggered about the room spluttering with laughter. I couldn’t see what was amusing him so and it made me uncomfortable. After a while, I asked:
    “What are you laughing about, Harvey?”
    He managed to say:
    “Tornado, forgive me! I’m laughing at you.”
    I frowned and began to feel kind of tense.
    “What’s so funny about me, Harvey?”
    “I did it—I set it up—and it was an unkind thing to do. But—Tornado—the expression!—the expression on your face!”
    And he was off again, doubled up, clutching his belly, and heaving with laughter. I didn’t say anything but I felt my fist clench.
    “What is this book, Harvey?” I asked.
    “It is selections from Erasmus, in translation. It’s a very difficult book, Tornado, even for someone who’s had a full classical education.”
    “Then why did you give it to me, Harvey?”
    “I have to admit, Tornado, it was pure mischief. I was curious to see what you’d make of it.”
    “You never expected me to understand it?”
    “I never did.”
    “How would you like me to break your jaw, Harvey?”
    “It would not improve your reading ability, Tornado.”
    “That’s true, Harvey. But that wouldn’t be my reason for doing it.”
    “Tornado, you are a powerful young man. I concede your ability to break my jaw. Won’t you be satisfied with that?”
    “Harvey, find me a book that I can read.”
    “What for?”
    “Because I really have a yen to read.”
    But he surprised me by saying urgently:
    “Don’t do it, Tornado! Don’t make the mistake so many have made and think you can turn books into dutiful servants. They’re infinitely treacherous. Let me explain: suppose I did what you wanted and