I was apparently supposed to be astonished by the fact that The Dog Crusoe was once a pup but whether or no, I did learn a lot about how to train dogs.
“Spot, you stupid mongrel, bring it back!”
    Rosely kept promising that we’d get to the bit in the boring old Coral Island were they were attacked by the shark as depicted in the frontispiece but it wasn’t as interesting as the picture. As adults, the same three lads returned to undertake a safari as The Gorilla Hunters in a no less unamazing fashion despite wonderful line drawings in my strange little copy; and even Martin Rattler could fight giant snakes in the Amazon without raising a hair. RM Ballantyne related only to a moment in time in any upbringing and then was to be ignored and was past his use-by date by the time I mastered the words.