Read "The Croquet Player" by H.G. Wells online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It was while I was sitting out on the terrace in the sun, nibbling a brioche and consuming a harmless vermouth and seltzer, that I first set eyes on Dr. Finchatton. He was two tables away and he was having an almost violent quarrel with a number of books he had got from the Les Noupets tea shop and lending library. He was opening them one after another, reading a few pages, turning them over, muttering, and banging them down on the ground with an emphasis that would have distressed the library people extremely. He looked up and caught my reproving eye. He stared and then smiled.
-"Scores of books," he said; "hundreds of books--and not one worth reading! They're all--OFF it."