The So-called Human Race Part 37

What we have always marveled at is Balfour's capacity for mental detachment. In the first year of the war he found time to deliver, extempore, the Gifford lectures, and in the next year he published "Theism and Humanism." It is said, of course, that he had a great gift for getting or allowing other people to do his work in the war council and the admiralty; but that does not entirely explain his br.i.m.m.i.n.g mind.

"There is a fine old man," as one of our readers reported his Irish gardener as saying of A. B. "Did you know Mr. Balfour?" he was asked.

"Did I know him?" was the reply. "Didn't I help rotten-egg him in Manchester twinty-five years ago!"

Col. f.a.n.n.y Butcher relates that the average reader who patronizes the New York public library prefers Conan Doyle's detective stories to any others. Quite naturally. There is more artistry in Poe, and the tales about the Frenchman, a.r.s.ene Lupin, are ten times more ingenious than Doyle's; but Doyle has infused the adventures of Sherlock Holmes with the undefinable something known as romance, and that has preserved them.

The great majority of detective stories are merely ingenious.

Col. Butcher says she uses "The Crock of Gold" to test the minds of people. A friend of ours employs "Zuleika Dobson" for the same purpose.

What literary acid do _you_ apply?

Our compliments to Mrs. Borah, who possesses a needed sense of humor.

"If," she is reported as saying to her husband, "if it were not for the pleasures of life you might enjoy it."

A librarian confides to us that she was visited by a young lady who wished to see a _large_ map of France. She was writing a paper on the battlefields of France for a culture club, and she just couldn't find Flanders' Fields and No Man's Land on any of the maps in her books.

A sign, reported by B. R. J., in a Cedar Rapids bank announces: "We loan money on Liberty bonds. No other security required." Showing that here and there you will find a banker who is willing to take a chance.

The first object of the National Parks a.s.sociation is "to fearlessly defend the national parks and monuments against a.s.saults of private interests." May we not hope that the w. k. infinitive also may be preserved intact?

A missionary from the Chicago Woman's Club lectured in Ottawa on better English and less slang, and the local paper headed its story: "b.u.m Jabber Binged on Beezer by Jane With Trick Lingo."

Young Grimes tells us that he would like to share in the advantages of Better Speech weeks, but does not know where to begin. We have started him off with the word "February." If at the end of the week he can p.r.o.nounce it Feb-ru-ary we shall give him the word "address."

"This, being Better English week, everyone is doing their best to improve their English."--Quincy, Mich., Herald.

Still, Jane Austen did it.

BETTER ENGLISH IN THE BEANERY.

Waiter: "Small on two--well!"

Chef: "Small well on two!"

Tip.

HAPPY THOUGHT.

This world is so full of a number of singers, We need not be bluffed any longer by ringers.

The Magic Kit.

A FAIRY TALE FOR SYMPATHETIC ELDERS.

I.

Once upon a time, not far removed from yesterday, there lived a poor book reviewer named Abner Skipp. He was a kindly man and an excellent husband and a most congenial soul to chat with, for he possessed a store of information on the most remote and bootless subjects drawn from his remarkable library--an acc.u.mulation of volumes sent to him for review, and which he had been unable to dispose of to the dealers in second-hand books. For you are to understand that too little literary criticism is done on a cash basis. Occasionally a famous author, like Mr. Howells, is paid real money to write something about Mr. James, or Mr. James is substantially rewarded for writing about Mr. Howells, and heads of departments and special workers are handsomely remunerated; but the journeyman reviewer is paid in books; and these are the source of his income.

Thus, every morning in the busy season, or perhaps once a week when trade was dull, Abner Skipp journeyed from the suburbs to the city with his pack of books on his back, and made the rounds of the second-hand shops, disposing of his wares for whatever they would fetch. Novels, especially what are known as the "best sellers," commanded good prices if they were handled, like fruit, without delay; but they were such perishable merchandise that oftentimes a best seller was dead before Abner could get it to market; and as he frequently reviewed the same novel for half a dozen employers, and therefore had half a dozen copies of it in his pack, the poor wretch was sadly out of pocket, being compelled to sell the dead ones to the junkman for a few pennies.

Abner Skipp was an industrious artisan and very skillful at his trade; working at top speed, he could review more than a hundred books in a day of eight hours. In a contest of literary critics held in Madison Square Garden, New York, Abner won first prize in all three events--reviewing by publisher's slip, reviewing by cover, and reviewing by t.i.tle page.

But shortly after this achievement he had had the misfortune to sprain his right arm in reviewing a new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which accident so curtailed his earning power that he fell behind in a money way, and was compelled to mortgage his home. But Abner Skipp was a cheerful, buoyant soul; and as his arm grew better and he was again able to wield the implements of his trade, he set bravely to work to mend his broken fortunes.

II.

If Abner Skipp had had nothing but popular novels to review he would a.s.suredly have perished of starvation, but frequently he received a medical work, or a history, or a volume of sportive philosophy by William James, or some such valuable work, which he could sell for a round sum. There was always plenty to do--all the best magazines employed him, and twice in the year--a month in spring and a month in fall--books came to him in such numbers that the expressman dumped them into the house through a shute like so many coals.

Mrs. Skipp a.s.sisted her husband all she could, but being a frail little woman she was able to work on only the lightest fiction. Angelica, the oldest daughter, cleared the book bin of a good deal of poetry and gift books, and even Grandpa Skipp was intrusted with a few juveniles.

But none of the family was more helpful than little Harold, who, after school time, worked side by side with his father, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the ready made review slips which publishers send out with books, and seeing that the paste pot never got empty or the paste too thick. Harold, as his father often proudly observed, was a born book reviewer. From infancy it was observed that the outside of a book always interested him more than the inside, and once when his school teacher directed him to write a sentence containing the word "book," he wrote: "The book is attractively bound and is profusely ill.u.s.trated."

One evening, in the very busiest week of the busy season, little Harold's was the only bright face at the supper table. Abner Skipp had had a bad day in the city; Mrs. Skipp and Angelica were exhausted from reviewing and household cares, and Grandpa was peevish because Abner had taken the "Pea Green Fairy Book" away from him and given him instead a "Child's History of the Congo Free State."

"What is the matter, Abner?" his wife asked him when the others of the family had retired. "Does your arm hurt you again?"

"No, wife," replied Abner Skipp. "My arm does not trouble me; I have handled only the lightest literature for the last fortnight. Alas! it is the same old worry. The interest on the mortgage will be due again next week, and in spite of the fact that the cellar is so full of books that I can scarcely get into it, we have not a dollar above the sum required to meet our monthly bills."

III.

"Alas!" exclaimed the hapless Abner Skipp, next morning, "it seems as if nothing was being published this fall except popular novels, and I obtained an average of less than twenty cents on the last sackload I took to town, not counting the dead ones which I sold to the junkman."