Johnny monologue — Misalliance

_[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.