a little while? All
slaughtered and made into books. Fortunately the public of that day did
not, as I have already explained, care much for reading; so perhaps that
is the secret why some of the sheep were spared."

"Why didn't they print their books on paper?" inquired Paul
thoughtlessly.

"Paper, you must remember, was not yet discovered; that is, it was
unknown in western Europe. It had been in use in China, however, for
some time; but China was not a generous country that spread its
inventions to other lands. What the Chinese discovered they kept to
themselves. Nor, in fact, was there any extended means of spreading such
things except through the primitive methods of conquest or travel. Wars
enough there were, it is true; but travel was very infrequent. Moreover,
I seriously doubt if scribes would have used paper at just that period
if they had had it. The first attempts at paper-making resulted in a
crude, coarse product that was regarded with great scorn by the rich;
and as for printed matter, the educated classes considered it a great
drop from handwork and too common a thing to be purchased."

"How ridiculous!"

"It smacked of the masses," laughed Mr. Cameron. "Elegant persons
refused to use anything so cheap. Snobbery existed among the ancients,
you see, quite as extensively as in our own day, and a possession was
only valuable while it was the property of the fortunate few. The
instant it came within the reach of everybody it was no longer desirable
in their eyes. Your snob always treasures a thing less for its intrinsic
value than because other people cannot have it. So it was among the
snobs that lived hundreds of years ago; the species has not materially
changed. No sooner did learning become general through the use of the
printing press, and become accessible to the man in moderate
circumstances than it lost its savor for the rich, and many a noble
boasted that he was unable to read, write, or spell. Learning suddenly
became a vulgar accomplishment, a thing to be spurned, ridiculed, and
avoided."

"I never heard of anything so absurd!" Paul said with contempt.

"It is no more absurd than is much of our present-day philosophy of
life," replied Mr. Cameron. "With all our enlightenment we have not yet
outgrown many of our follies."

He stopped, smiling whimsically to himself.

Paul bent over the richly colored pages on the table.

"I don't see," he remarked, "how they ever bound such stuff as this.