but I have been woonderfully fortunate in | eulogiums, that I had then and there been this one; I have never lost it even in lodg- not only the first inventor, but the first ings and hotels." practical utilizer, of the electric telegraph, which was not at that time a fait accompli. "Well, you have the most woonderful mechanical genius I ever saw in the wool (whole) course of my life; perfectly woonderful! Now, I couldn't have done that had my life depended on it." That I could easily believe. Despite the wind, which was very high, a few large drops of rain began to fall; so after hastily fumbling at the seaweed strings, and thereby entangling them more hopelessly than ever, till he found them more knotty than any problem in Euclid, Mr. Landor, whose impetuosity was always for cutting And in this hyperbolical strain he conGordian knots, with one supreme effort tinued, till I left him at his own door, rebroke the refractory strings, and, with an newing it through the whole of dinner air of triumph fully warranted by so colos- for he dined with me that day, and so did sal an achievement, unfurled this ponder- the Avenels, who were not a little amused ous piece of itinerant shelter. But, alas, at my woonderful mechanical genius the wind soon became a perfect hurricane, till we all became a little tired of it. and upturned the woonderful umbrella After dinner Mrs. Avenel said to me, like a Patagonian wineglass, as if it "I want to ask Mr. Landor to dinner thought the falling rain was nectar that to-morrow, but I am obliged to ask Mr. the gods had spilt. But even this classi-Q.; and really Mr. Landor does so laugh cal delusion on the part of the umbrella at him and is so horribly rude to him that did not sufficiently enlist its owner's sym- I quite dread it, for of course he won't pathy to mollify him; so, with his left mind Fred; and the admiral, who does foot thrown backward, and his right firmly keep him a little in order, is away. I planted forward, his head thrown back in wish you would speak to Mr. Landor, and the attitude of Ajax defying the lightning, get him to promise that as we shall be he stood shaking the umbrella with that quite en petit comité I do hope he won't sort of "Don't-suppose-you'll-make-me-let-skin poor Mr. Q. alive with his scathing go vengeance with which a bull-dog ridicule." I promised to undertake the shakes a captured rat. This mode of negotiation; and in the course of the waging war with the storm of course only made the latter more victorious, and inflated the extemporized cotton wineglass ten times more. The whole scene was so inconceivably ludicrous that it was fortunate the little artist was not there, or I am very certain he would have rolled on the grass in convulsions. At length I got Mr. Landor to listen to my proposition that we should retrace our steps and get home as soon as possible, by which means we should be turning our backs to the wind and so obtain more power over the umbrella, which I also begged of him to let me try my hand upon. Apparently weary, as he might well be, from the energy he had lavished on the proceeding of threatening Jupiter by brandishing this formidable weapon at the clouds, he made it over to me, and by planting the handle in the ground, and taking a little time with both hands over each of the whalebone ribs, I at length succeeded though not quite as dexterously as a Japanese juggler might have done in reconverting the wineglass back into an umbrella. Any person not knowing the cause, and only seeing and hearing the effect, of my achievement, might have supposed, from the vehemence and exaggerated enthusiasm of Mr. Landor's evening, when pretty Rose Avenel had charmed him into perfect good-humor with "Casta Diva," I opened my mission with a degree of amiable and reckless candor that Count Bismarck might have mistaken for his own. For after he had accepted Mrs. Avenel's invitation, I said à brûle pourpoint, Now, Mr. Landor, you will be deprived of my delightful society unless you will faithfully promise me one thing." "I promise anything and everythingexcept to pay on demand three millions sterling." "O, it is much easier than that, what I want you to promise, and not half so costly. It is that you will pledge yourself not to cut up poor Mr. Q. into such a mincemeat of ridicule as you always do." His first answer to this was a loud roar of laughter, such as he always exploded in at merely the mention of Mr. Q.'s name; and, as soon as he could speak, he said, "And you call that not so costly, when the richest thing in the world is a béchamel of Q.! Well, well, I promise I'll be on my best behavior; in short, I'll be quite complimentary." 66 "No, no; all compliments are forbidden fruit in that quarter, for it is too much for mortal gravity to hear your treacherous ironical flattery, and listen to the poor unconscious victim in his little thin attenuated voice, that seems as moth-eaten as his face looks, thanking you with 'I'm sure, Mr. Landor, I feel highly flattered at your praise."" 66 Ha, ha, ha! Well, then, only Greek and Latin quotations. Ha, ha, ha!"* "Most decidedly not; above all, and before all, I bar them; and if you won't make an honest, bond fide, unconditional, and unequivocal promise of good behavior, and that you will not be guilty of lèse Q., why, then there is nothing for it but for me to employ my wonderful mechanical genius in constructing a muzzle for you that shall defy tampering with as effectually as ever the iron mask did." Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, Dulce loquentem. But it is not given to us ordinary mortals to do so." 66 Ah, true, so very true!" said the Poet Q., shutting his eyes and shaking his head solemnly. This nearly proved fatal to us all, but more especially to the incorrigible cause of it; so, coming to the rescue, and at the same time contriving to enter a protest against this breach of the overnight's treaty, I turned to him and said, "Pray, Mr. Landor, did I show you the extraordinary new muzzle I have had made, quite on a new plan, for Bijou?” "Ah, poor dog," said he, bursting into one of his usual roars, which must have been an immense relief to him, "if you muzzle him you'll only give him time to brew more mischief, and he'll bark double tides and play the very devil when he's unmuzzled." After a few more reiterated roars at poor Mr. Q.'s expense, which was on the same plan as when the Russian sledgedogs have a long journey and many days' "I'm afraid so," I rejoined, "for some fast before them, they are allowed to con- dogs, like some persons, are incorrigible." sume several meals in one, Mr. Landor, Here, to my great relief, dinner was anhaving laughed to his heart's content, un-nounced. On reaching the dining-room conditionally promised good behavior for Mrs. Avenel said to him, with a meaning the next day. look, When, on the following day, we were all assembled at Mrs. Avenel's, that always tant soit peu impracticable "half-hour before dinner was a nervous ordeal for us all; for though Mr. Landor had greeted poor Mr. Q. with perfect good breeding, yet upon that personage having, while contemplating a recently finished portrait of the youngest Miss Avenel, delivered himself of one of those little innocuous and incontrovertible truisms which he was in the habit of launching on the stream of conversation - viz: "Ah, very lovely indeed! Very like there is the smile; but where is the voice? Ah, if we could only make it speak!"-I, to my horror, perceived the twitching of Mr. Landor's mouth, which was a sort of muscular | shock that always preceded one of his risible earthquakes. But he saw I was looking at him, so he commuted it into a bland smile, and, with a courteous bow to the Poet Q., as if he had been paying him some well-termed compliment, said, "Ah, Mr. Q, you, indeed, may be able to command as a permanent institution, even in effigy, a • Mr. Landor would have it that Mr. Q. was guiltless of both Latin and Greek; and so used to perfectly lard him with epigrams and ridicule in those languages, which he, no doubt, not perfectly hearing, from Mr. Landor's electric-telegraph enunciation, used certainly to bow to as compliments, from the bland smile and courtly salute with which his tormentor uttered them. Alas, poor Poet Q.! he is now no more! "Mr. Landor, will you have the goodness to take my brother's place at the foot of the table, and keep us all in order?" Which, being interpreted, meant keep yourself in order." 66 "A new and charming order; the order of the Belle Donne. What is to be the motto of it?" "Bona fide," said I, with another meaning look at him. "Amen, then!" and he ate his soup and remained silent for a few minutes; for he did with his dinner always as the Irishman did with his sleeping, paid attintion to it. The Poet Q. having expressed a little mild admiration at the noble conduct of a friend known to us all, who had saved a poor gentleman (an utter stranger to him) from prison by having anonymously sent him a thousand pounds "A fine fellow, truly," said Mr. Landor; "but I don't suppose he'll have many imitators, as we moderns, as to fine sentiments and fine actions, seem to have adopted Virgil's advice as to farms; that is, always to admire large farms, but only to cultivate small ones.' Those were the days when dinners were first put on the table and then handed round, and when people asked each other to drink wine; both of which now abol. ished customs gave Mr. Landor the opportunity of being aux petits soins to Mr. Boeotian, deep-mouthed Savage Landor, but all talking, or rather vociferating, together. Q., till he so overdid his empressement | neath: first, a heavy but unequal thud or that I could not help saying to him, when pounding, such as paviors make at their the Poet Q. was engaged talking to Rose work; then a great babel of voices - Mr. Avenel, that he was dreadfully overdoing Q.'s weak treble, Fred Avenel's shrill it, as les extrêmes se touchent, and the falsetto, both merged in the thunders of whole thing strongly reminded one of that memorable dinner at Dilly's the publisher's, to which Boswell had diplomatized Dr. Johnson into meeting Wilkes, and where the latter overthrew all the great lexicographer's prejudices and won his heart with no other deus ex machinâ than | roast veal, the squeeze of a Seville orange, and the recommendation of melted butter. "Ha, ha, ha! As I'm compared to Wilkes, may I take the Wilkes and liberty of asking you to take wine, Mr. Q.? And allow me to recommend to your notice this ris de veau aux cervelles; though offering you brains, Mr. Q., is like offering Hippocrene to Helicon!" In short, so completely did poor Mr. Q.'s innocence and good faith receive all Mr. Landor's base coin for sterling, that he at last actually began to speak of his own poetry; it was à propos of the exquisite beauty of Tennyson's versifica tion. "Sometimes, do you know," said Mr. Q., "I have qualms and fear that my friends flatter me, for, compared with Tennyson's, my versification does not always, as it were, run smoothly." "Oh, Mr. Q., discard all such doubts; for, as Erasmus says and one would really think he had said it of your verses Bene currunt, sed extra viam !" "Ah, you are too good! I'm sure I feel greatly flattered, Mr. Landor-greatly so indeed!" "Good heavens! what can they be doing?" asked Mrs. Avenel, turning quite pale. "I fear they are quarrelling; and Fred is so ill-tempered, he'll only make matters worse. We had better go down." So down we went, the uproar increasing to a perfect tempest as we came nearer to it. Gently and noiselessly we opened the dining-room door, and the scene that was there presented baffles description; and, unless the reader was previously ac quainted with the physique and idiosyncrasies of each of the three dramatis persone, it could not, by the medium of mere language, however polyglot, be adequately conveyed to his imagination. Primus, they had all three the right leg of their trousers rolled up above the knee; and the thudding or pounding we had heard was occasioned by their hopping round the room on their left leg, while the right one was extended by each of the respective owners for exhibition and competition; while each, at the top of his voice, was insisting that his own individual leg was the most symmetrical and perfect! Upon our entry Hamlet, alias Fred Avenel, avait la parole, as they say in the Chamber of Deputies. His face, usually so pale, was all ablaze with excitement, and the importance of the question, as he squeaked and hissed out, Why, of course my leg is the handsomest, or how could I play Hamlet?" "Not with your head, Fred, decidedly; so it must be with your leg." But, as we all thought, this was too bad. We made it our signal for departure, not without fear and trembling as to what might happen when we were gone, and no longer there to hold the phantom muzzle, like Macbeth's phantom dagger, before "Very good, very good indeed, Mr. Mr. Landor's eyes, and with only his Landor," pensively smiled the Poet Q., other butt, Fred Avenel, there as an in-ashe held his own asparagus-like leg in abeyance. centive. "Mr. Landor really is too bad, and how Mr. Q. does not see through it I cannot conceive," said Mrs. Avenel, as she seated herself on the sofa, when we reached the drawing room. "But your leg is too thick, Mr. Landor," hissed Fred, returning to the charge. "Too thick !" roared the 'deepmouthed." 66 My dear Fred, if you can't play Hamlet with your head, you should "The fact is," I replied, "that we all at least not make it the standard for other laugh so much at Mr. Landor's laugh, and people's legs. When I was last at Florhis big bow-wow manner, that I suppose ence there was a man in the Casa FiliMr. Q. confounds cause with effect, and caja, one Giuseppe Baldi, said to have thinks the laugh is against Mr. Landor." the most woonderfully beautiful leg in all We had not enjoyed our halcyon quiet | Italy. I went with Bartaloni the sculptor half an hour when we were startled by a one day to compare my leg with his; and violent uproar in the dining-room under-upon measurement it was found to be exact in all its proportions to that of Baldi." "I wonder," said I, to conceal the tittering of the young ladies at this, "that as you were in the house of Filicaja, you did not take his advice." works of theirs have gained full and welldeserved recognition on our side of the water as well as theirs, have pushed this dry and empty method to the verge of weariness, and perhaps their position has not been improved by indiscreetly con"Ah, but though poets may be good temptuous utterances concerning masters judges of feet, I don't consider that they of fiction yet greater than they can preare any of legs," roared the "deep-tend to be. These things being so, it is mouthed." "There, Mr. Q.," said I, glad to pay the poor man a left-handed compliment, "that puts you completely out of court." "Besides," squeaked Fred, who was determined not to give his enemies or rivals any quarter, "though your legs are such spindles, Mr. Q., yet your ankles are as thick as any part of them." "Well hit, Fred!" roared Mr. Landor. "You remember the old epigram: 'Harry, I cannot think,' said Dick, 'What makes my ankles look so thick !' 'You do not recollect,' quoth Harry, 'How great a calf they have to carry !'" Fortunately he said this with such extra velocity, snapping with his upper teeth his under lip, so as not to let the words roll over, that I do not think Mr. Q. heard, or at least had time to digest, the pith of it, when Mr. Landor, turning to me, said, "Now, come, let us all place our legs in a row, and you shall be umpire." "Thank you for the honor," I said, looking at the dessert; "mais il n'y a pas de quoi, for there are no apples, only peaches; and I'll promise not to peach about this truly ridiculous comedietta. We have long heard of Every man his own washerwoman;' but we are indebted to you gentlemen for letting us know that every man can be his own judgment of Paris!" From The Saturday Review. RUDDER GRANGE.* AMERICAN novelists have been apt in these days, as we have of late had occa. sion to observe, to overdo the "analysis business; the beating out of character (and pretty thin character at that, to borrow an American expression), with an affectation of profound knowledge of it from the inside, to the exclusion of free and pleasant observation of incident and character combined, from the outside. American writers of fiction who by certain * Rudder Grange. By Frank R. Stockton. Edinburgh: D. Douglas. 1883. the more pleasant to come upon an American novelist whose style is easy, fluent, and pleasant, who has a keen eye for humor which makes no pretence at "subtlety," and which hardly ever leans to caricature, who can make his characters show themselves as living men and women without any wearisome insistence on or explanation of their characteristics on his own part; and who has produced in the novel of which we now speak a work which is as charming as Henrik Scharling's "Nöddebo Parsonage," and which is cast in much the same mould as that delightful book, although it may be assumed that the resemblance is undesigned. Mr. Stockton, has, we believe, been recwriter of fiction in America; but it is comognized for some little time as an excellent Paratively lately that he has been known plete work of his, though no doubt many in England by the publication of any comof our readers are acquainted with decirculation in England of the Century tached pieces of his work through the the finely touched and finely described magazine. Amongst the best of these is story of "The Lady and the Tiger," a story left without an end with far better American writers who choose to leave reason than can be put forward by other their more pretentious stories unfinished, and possibly think that, having done so, they have written like Mérimée or like Tourgénieff. "Rudder Grange" is, however, a complete story, or a complete set of chapters in several people's lives, though there is no reason why it should not be continued, as Scharling's "Nödwas continued in "Nidebo Parsonage colai's Marriage." 66 "Rudder Grange" takes its name from the fact that a young couple, described at Euphemia the opening of the book as and I," marry upon the smallest of means, have the greatest difficulty in finding a decent house to which they can fit their resources; fall in love with a canal-boat imbedded in the ground by the riverside, which an oyster-man has turned into a habitation; and finally seize the chance of getting such a habitation for themselves. The humor of their difficulty in finding a house at starting and this is a difficulty which will appeal to a large number of readers is increased by the fact that before their marriage the two young people have written a little book, which has been successful, concerning houses and housekeeping. When the matter comes to a practical test, they find that the little book is not altogether trustworthy. There is a good deal of fun of a pleasant and not overcharged kind about the first instalment of the young couple in Rudder Grange, as the home in the canal-boat is christened, and this is increased when, to eke out their means, they take in a boarder. As to this they had no trouble, for "we had a friend, a young man who was engaged in the flour business, who was very anxious to come and live with us. ing." He had been to see us two or three "Hello, mister," he said, "got any tobac co?" I walked up to him. I took hold of him by the lapel of his coat. It was a dirty lapel, as I remember even now, but I didn't mind that. "Look here," said I. "Tell me the truth, I can bear it. Was that vessel wrecked?" The wretched man looked at me a little queerly. I could not exactly interpret his expression. "You're sure you kin bear it?" said he. "Yes," said I, my hand trembling as I held his coat. "Well then," said he, "it's mor'n I kin," and he jerked his coat out of my hand, and When he reached the other side sprang away. of the road, he turned and shouted at me, as though I had been deaf. "Do you know what I think?" he yelled. "I think you're a darned lunatic," and with that he went his way. Finally he discovers the boat, has to times, and had expressed himself charmed make his way at the risk of suffocation with our household arrangements." This through mud and reeds to clamber on is, so far, very well; but the boarder turns board, and finds Euphemia and the boardout to be "very fond of telling us what we er playing at chess in sublime unconought to do. He suggested more improve-sciousness. Presently the housework bements in the first three days of his sojourn gins to tell too heavily upon Euphemia, than I had thought of since we commenced and there are strange difficulties about housekeeping. And what made the mat- getting a servant, which are overcome by ter worse, his suggestions were generally the arrival of a girl named Pomona from very good ones. Had it been otherwise a Home. There is one objection to PoI might have borne his remarks more mona, which is that she is devoted to complacently; but to be continually told penny-dreadful literature, and incapable what you ought to do, and to know that of reading to herself unless she reads out you ought to do it, is extremely annoy- loud. "As the evenings were often cool, Amongst other things, the boarder we sat in our dining-room, and the parcleverly contrives a flower-garden on deck, tition between this room and the kitchen and hauls in the anchor to use as a garden- seemed to have no influence whatever in hoe. There is a high tide, and the hus- arresting sound. So that when I was band comes back from his work to find trying to read or to reflect it was by no that his house has vanished. He rushes means exhilarating to my mind to hear wildly along the bank, questioning every from the next room that "the la dy ce one he meets: sel i a now si zed the weep on and all though the boor ly vil ly an re tain ed his vy gor ous hold she drew the blade through his fin gers and hoorl ed it far be hind her dryp ping with jore." Before long Pomona, excellent creature though she is, gives rise to serious trouble. In the first place, in consequence of various alarms of burglaries in the immediate neighborhood, Euphemia's husband and the boarder each buy a pistol. Also burglar-alarms are purchased, and a plan of action is settled on in case of an actual attempt at burglary. "At the first sound of the alarm Euphemia and the girl were to lie Then the boarder and I were to stand flat on the floor or get under their beds. back to back, each with pistol in hand, and fire away, revolving on a common centre the while. In this way, by aiming horizontally at about four feet from the I was rapidly becoming frantic when I met a person who hailed me. "Hello!" he said, 66 boat adrift?" "Yes," I panted. are you after a canal "You looked "I thought you was," he said. that way. Well, I can tell you where she is. She's stuck fast in the reeds at the lower end o' Peter's Pint." "Where's that?" said I. "Oh, it's about a mile furder up. I seed her a-drifting up with the tide- big flood-tide, to-day-and I thought I'd see somebody after her afore long. Anything aboard ?” Anything! I could not answer the man. indeed! I hurried on up the river without a Anything, word. Was the boat a wreck? I scarcely dared to think of it. I scarcely dared to think at all. The man called after me and I stopped. I could but stop, no matter what I might hear. |