sub slow_print {
    my $subscript = shift;
    my $para = $paras[ $subscript ];

    if ( $wrapping ) {
	$para = &rewrap( $para );
    }

    # include the filename/line number index in the paragraph instead
    # of printing it separately, so we don't have to duplicate the
    # sleeping/keypress-handling logic below.
    if ( $print_filenames or $debug ) {
	$para = $indices[ $subscript ] . $para;
    }

    my @lines = split /\n/, $para;
    foreach ( @lines ) {
	print $_ . "\n";

	# If the user presses a key before the pause time for
	# the current line has passed, we don't necessarily skip
	# to the next line with no further pause.
	my $start = time;
	my $remaining_wait =  $pause_len * length $_;
	while ( time < ( $start + $remaining_wait ) ) {
	    my $key = ReadKey( $remaining_wait );
	    if ( defined $key ) {
		&handle_keystroke( $key );
	    }
	    # the $pause_len might have been changed by user's keypress
	    $remaining_wait = ($pause_len * length $_) - (time - $start);
	}
    }
    print "\n\n";
}

##</code><code>##

# comments refer to benchmark tests using ~/Documents/ and ~/etext/ dirs
sub want_file {
    my $filename = shift;
    if ( $check_type && -T $filename ) {
	# 15061 filenames in 0.692 sec
	return 1;
    } elsif ( $check_extensions ) {
	# 8857 filenames in . 0.794 sec with 
	# --extensions=txt,pl,html,htm 
	if ( ( grep { $filename =~ m(\.$_$) } @file_extensions ) && -e $filename) {
	    return 1;
	}
    } else {
	# this test finds 5066 files in ~/Documents and ~/etext 
	#  in 0.218 sec
	if ( $filename =~ m(\.txt$) &&  -e $filename  ) {
	    return 1;
	}
    }
    return 0;
}


sub recurse_dir {
    my $dirname = shift;

    local *D;
    opendir D, $dirname;

    my $fname;
    while ( $fname = readdir D ) {
	my $name = $dirname . "/" . $fname;
	if ( -d $name ) {
	    # don't recurse on . or .. or dotfiles generally
	    if ( $fname !~ /^\./ ) {
		print "$name is a dir\n"	if $debug >= 3;
		&recurse_dir( $name );
	    }
	} elsif ( &want_file( $name ) ) {
	    print "$name is a text file\n"	if $debug >= 3;
	    push @filenames, $name;
	} else {
	    print "skipping $name\n"	if $debug >= 3;
	}
	if ( $preload_paras and ((rand 100) < 1) ) {
	    print "preload mode so printing something while still gathering filenames (" . (scalar @filenames) . " read so far)\n"	if $debug;
	    if ( scalar @filenames ) {
		&add_paras;
		&slow_print( int rand scalar @paras );
	    } else {
		print "...but there are no usable files yet\n" 	if $debug;
	    }
	}
    }
    closedir D;
}