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19 a Brown dog sleeps on a Rag Rug A SPOTTED DOG ENTERS THE ROOM AND CIRCLES A BROWN DOG. spot: You ever eat a book? Brownie: Just don’t. don’t wake a sleeping dog. spot: You’re awake. How many books have you eaten? Brownie: I never ate a book. spot: You ate a book. every dog has eaten a book. Brownie: One. a book. I admit it. I ate the whole book. spot: no you didn’t. no dog ate the whole book. You ate the back binding and some of the covers where their hands had been. Brownie: Just the binding. You’re right. It was delicious. spot: no, it wasn’t. It looked delicious, but it was dry, only slightly savory. Brownie: It wasn’t even leather. It looked like leather. spot: It’s never leather. What was it? Brownie: Robinson Crusoe. spot: That’s a good book. Brownie: It was awful. I could barely choke it down. spot: You cut yourself? Brownie: Paper cuts. My tongue. spot: did you also eat the Tennyson? Brownie: I might have. spot: Little red book, embossed gold letters. Brownie: Tennyson wrote more than the one book. spot: This was his poems about King arthur. a red book. Brownie: I ate it. It was better than the other book. spot: You ate the whole shelf. Brownie: Oh please. spot: You did. Book by book. Once you’d had one, the others were easier to get at. Brownie: Okay, they were. They fell into my mouth. spot: The six old volumes of shakespeare. Brownie: Unbelievably good. delicious. Melted in my mouth. spot: It looked like it. 20 Brownie: I couldn’t stop myself. One thing led to another. I wish he’d written more. I could use one of those books right now. spot: He didn’t write all those plays. Christopher Marlowe, edward de Vere . . . Brownie: shakespeare wrote those books. spot: Ben Johnson, Queen elizabeth, William stanley who was the earl of derby. Brownie: In that case, I never had a book in my mouth. I haven’t. I’ve been sleeping and you came in from the library. I’m an old dog who needs his sleep. I saw the books on the floor in there and they made me tired and so I came in here hours ago. I’ve never even licked a book. The earl of derby! I wouldn’t know a book from a hole in the ground. Well, I’d know a hole in the ground, but I had nothing to do with any of those either. Mainly, I’ve been sleeping and then you came in and wanted to talk. ...

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