“I don’t believe in no kind of fiction, nohow,” said Mr. Hardcap, emphatically.  “What we want is facts, Mr. Laicus-hard facts.  That’s what I was brought up on when I was a boy, and that’s what I mean to bring my boys up on.”

I thought of Mr. Gradgrind, but said nothing.

“Yes,” said Mr. Hardcap, half soliloquizing, “there is Charles Dickens.  He was nothing in the world but a novel writer, and they buried him in Westminster Cathedral, as though he were a saint; and preached sermons about him, and glorified him in our religious papers.  Sallie is crazy to get a copy of his works, and even wife wants to read some of them.  But they’ll have to go out of my house to do it, I tell ye.  Why, they couldn’t make more to do if it was Bunyan or Milton.”

“Bunyan?” said I.  “Do you mean the author of Pilgrim’s Progress?”

“Yes,” said he:  “that is a book.  Why, it’s worth a hundred of your modern novels.”

“How is that?” said I.  “Pilgrim’s Progress, if I mistake not, is fiction.”

“Oh! well,” said .Mr. Hardcap, “that’s a very different thing.  It isn’t a novel.  It’s a allegory.  That’s altogether different.”

“What is the difference?” said I.

“Oh! well,” said he, “that’s altogether different.  I suppose it is fictitious; but then it’s altogether different.  It’s a allegory.”

“Now I don’t approve,” continued Mr. Hardcap, without explaining himself any further, “of our modern Sunday-school libraries.  I have complained a good deal, but it’s no use.  Tom brings home a story book every Sunday.  I can’t very well say he shan’t take any books out of the library, and I don’t want to take him out of Sunday-school.  But I don’t like these Sunday-school stories.  They are nothing but little novels anyhow.  And they’re all lies.  I don’t believe in telling stories to teach children.  If I had my way, there wouldn’t be but one book in the library.  That would be the Bible.”

“You could hardly leave in all the Bible,” said I.  “You would have to cross out the parable of the prodigal son.”

“The parable of the prodigal son!” exclaimed Mr. Hardcap, in astonishment.

“Yes,” said I:  “that is, if you did not allow any fiction in your Sunday reading.”

“Oh!” said he, “that’s very different.  That’s not fiction; that’s a parable.  That’s entirely different.  Besides,” continued he, “I don’t know what right you have to assume that it is a story at all.  I have no doubt that it is true.  Christ says distinctly that a man had two sons, and one came and asked him for his portion.  He tells it all for a fact, and I think it very dishonoring to him to assume that it is not.  I have no doubt that he knew just such a case.”

“And the same thing is true of the parable of the lost sheep, and the lost piece of money, and the sower, and the merchantman, and the pearl, and the unfaithful steward?” I asked.

“Yes,” said he, “I have no doubt of it.”