A DIAGNOSIS.
"It says 'ere, as your old Boss, Colonel M'Whuskey, has been took ill."—"Ah! so I 'erd!"—"Russian Epidemic?"—"No,—Scotch."
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
Book Markers.
"Bring me my Scotch Dictionary!" cried the Baron. "Alas, my Lord!" was the answer of the faithful servitor, "there is none such here." "I'fakins!" quoth the Baron, "then will I buckle to and read A Window in Thrums without it, even though I break all my teeth and nigh choke myself, as indeed, I have well-nigh done in my gallant attempt to master the first two chapters." So I, the Baron, being convalescent and having a few hours to spare, lay me down and read, and read, and read, and stumbled over the Scotch words and phrases, until I hit on the plan of reading it aloud to two or three other convalescents; just to see how they would like it. And as I read aloud, this book,—which on account of its apparent difficulty, and by reason of my education having been neglected, "lang syne," in respect to the Scotch language, an intimate knowledge of which I have not yet acquired "the noo,"—it gained my affection gradually, steadily, and increasingly. Though I could not have translated individual words and phrases, yet I instinctively understood them, and was delighted with the homely simplicity of the style, the keen observation, the shrewd wit, and the gentle pathos of A Window in Thrums. The Baron de Book-Worms is grateful to Mr. J. M. Barrie; and when an opportunity is offered him, he is seriously thinking of re-reading some of the Scotchiest of Sir Walter Scott's Novels, and having a "Nicht or twa wi' Robbie Burns."
I await the Reminiscences of Mr. Montagu Williams, Q.C. and P.M., with considerable interest.
Mr. Keith Fleming's romance, Can such Things be? or, the Weird of the Beresfords,—no relation to Lord Charles of that ilk,—starts, and will make the reader start too, with a very creepy idea. The story would have been a genuine weird and eerie one but for the continual twaddling interruptions about "spookikal" research and metaphysical problems, which, however, the experienced skipper, who knows the chart, can easily avoid after the first two or three bumps, and even the inexperienced reader will be able, after an hour or two, to hop from point to point like a robin from twig to twig. But skipping and hopping is wearying, and the story is too long, and so we become familiar with the ghost, and we all know what the fatal consequence of familiarity is. The repetitions of the Spook's appearance are monotonous. Had The Weird been condensed like milk in tins, or essenced like Liebig, and been presented to the public as a story in two numbers of Blackwood (always such an appropriate title for a Magazine full of mysterious stories,—Black Wood so like Black Forest) or Macmillan, or Cornhill (where, somehow, a ghost-story always reads uncommonly well), this romance would have created a great sensation. As it is, it doesn't, at least not much. Baron de Book-worms.