other: an artificial bronze ornament on the mantelpiece, an upright piano surmounted by a crystal vase holding an artificial bouquet, which constituted the principal ornament, and an improvised decoration. There I sat down on a sofa by the side of a diminutive centre table on which had been disposed the most precious objects of the ménage: statuettes, bonbonnières, and then I distinguished, next to a snuffbox which struck me very much indeed, a Tanagra statuette, the Tanagra which you see here,' said the doctor, showing me the lovely little figurine which danced upon his desk.

I singled out this Tanagra with such interest that I listened only very distraughtly to my companion, who was pouring out his infinite gratitude and assuring me that he would never be able to pay completely the debt he had contracted. In fact he gushed out upon me all those warm conventional words which would make a vain practitioner think for a moment that he is really capable of taking Nature's place in saving his fellow man.

'Doctor,' he said, 'how much do I owe you? I want to know right now?

At this moment I was so absorbed in the inspection of the little Tanagra that I had picked it up in order to bring it nearer to my eyes. The husband insisted:

"Tell me, doctor, five hundred francs? a thousand francs? We are not very

rich, but we have our savings. How much do you want?'

Then, without letting go of the sta tuette for a moment, I replied, "This,' pointing to it.

He cried out, "That! That is nothing in compensation of my debt to you. That statuette is a mere trifle. My wife brought it in one evening and said that she got it for nothing!'

"That's all right,' I replied obstinately. 'You have been so kind as to ask what I should like. I have told youthis statuette. I refuse all other fees.' In the end I took away, jealously guarded, the Tanagra, which pleases you now. And now, if you want to know why I keep it on my desk instead of placing it in my salon, I will tell you. It is a measure of precaution. The truth is that it used to be in the salon from which my temporary client stole it do you understand me, stole it. For she was a professional thief from the waiting-rooms of doctors, that woman, whose husband was so anxious to pay me in full. The distinguishing mark on the statuette could not be mistaken. I should have been inconsolable over this pilfering. . . I should not have been so bad, you see, if I had returned to my very good friend, Dr. Durthis, my neighbor, the carved snuffbox, which was standing right next to my Tanagra in that little parlor. But I did n't want to create any scandal, nor to pass for a gewgaw fiend.

.

TRESPASSERS

BY F. W. BATESON

[The Spectator]

GAUNTLY Outlined, white and still, Three haystacks peer above the hill; Three agèd rakes thrust sprawlingly Fantastic tendons to the sky.

In the void and dismal yard,
Farmer's dog keeps rasping guard,
Challenging night's trespassers,
The solemn legions of the stars;
Growling ignominious scorn
At Cancer and at Capricorn.

The yellow stars, serene and prim, Tolerantly stare at him.

THE SINGING FAIRY

BY R. F.

[Punch]

THERE was a fairy once
Who lived alone
In a mossy hole

Under a stone.

Never abroad she went;
Only at night

When the moon was clear
And the stars bright

High on the stone she stood,
Lifted her head
And stayed singing there
Till the dark fled.

All the woods listened then,

Not a leaf stirred; Sweeter far the song Than song of bird.

Whence and how it came
None ever knew
None but the fairy-
And me and you.

MR. J. C. SQUIRE ON 'THE DOMESDAY
BOOK'

MR. J. C. SQUIRE, editor of the London Mercury and literary critic of the Observer has reviewed The Domesday Book, which was until very lately the most recent work of Mr. Edgar Lee Masters. Mr. Masters, however, is too prolific for the critics to keep up with him, and the same page which carries the review bears an advertisement of the English edition of his new book, -Mitch Miller.

Perhaps Mr. Squire will like Mitch Miller better than he likes The Domesday Book which he reviews with occasional, but scarcely discoverable, approval. Admitting that 'there is a great deal of thought and observation in it, much sense and speculation, an unusual amount of charity,' he declares that 'it is tedious all the same. It is a novel in verse; the novel is not a very fascinating novel and the verse is far from good verse.' Then Mr. Squire asks an unkind question: 'What on earth induced him to take to writing verse?'

Mr. Masters in writing The Domesday Book evidently had The Ring and the Book in mind. Mr. Squire, perhaps recalling Claverley's famous parody of that endless poem, closes his article. with two compositions of his own, in the style of the book he is reviewing. One is devoted to the Crippen murder and the other to Mr. Masters himself. The parodies are so good that one regrets they were written too late to be included in the reviewer's recent volume of Collected Parodies. Here is his idea of the way in which The Domesday Book was composed:

And Edgar Masters, warmed up to his work,
Ploughed steadily on, a hundred lines a day.
He'd done her mother, father, lovers twain,
The coroner, the man who found her dead,
The old school-friend who saw her in the street,
The man who gave her money on her watch,
And dozens more; and when he neared the end,
He said 'I'll end this story with a snap,'
And brought in quite an unexpected lover,
Concluding with much free morality.
And then the book was printed, bound, des-
patched,

Sent out to the reviewers, of whom one
Felt strongly that, if this were really verse.
Verse were an easier thing to write than prose.

DICKENS AND THE BRONTË SISTERS

A BOOK which raises an interesting literary problem was sold in London the other day. It is a copy of Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, the first and unsuccessful literary venture of the Brontë sisters, once owned by Charles Dickens. In distributing a few gift copies, Charlotte Brontë lamented that "in the space of a year the publisher has disposed of but two copies, and by what painful efforts he succeeded in getting rid of these two, himself only knows.' No gift copy is known to have been sent to Dickens. Was he one of those two unknown purchasers? One would like to think so.

TALES OF THE SAMURAI

A FEW of the innumerable legends of feudal Japan are made available for English readers in a new book by Mr. Asataro Miyamori, Professor of English in Toyo University, Tokyo. It is called Tales of the Samurai (Tokyo: Kyō-Bun-Kwan. Ginza. 4 yen.) and sets forth, in a remarkably good English style, incidents of the days when great territorial barons ruled in hereditary strongholds, supported by devoted knights, every one of them vowed to regard his lord's word as law and ready to sacrifice property, life, family, honor itself, at his command.

Such tales as these are still told nightly in the yose, the unpretentious public halls which are found in every Japanese town, where hundreds of men, women, and children gather to listen eagerly most eagerly of all to the tales of the gundan-shi, a class of story-tellers who recount only war-like adventures.

Professor Miyamori some years ago wrote an excellent book on the Noh drama, giving succinct summaries of the historic plays, some of which still hold the stage. A distinction is to be made

between the Toyo (Oriental) University, in which Professor Miyamori has his chair, and the University of Tokyo. The former is a private institution, in which the courses are largely in literature and philosophy; whereas the latter is a state institution offering instruction in all branches, much as in an American or European university.

IN SIR JAMES BARRIE'S KIRRIEMUIR

A CURIOUS fact with regard to the town of Kirriemuir, made famous by Sir James Barrie in A Window in Thrums, has been brought to light by a writer in the London Graphic. Soon after the publication of the book, the town council made such sweeping changes in the names of streets that the visitor scarcely knew he was in Sir James' country. 'Tannage Brae' became 'Bridge Street'; 'Belle's Brae,' ‘Baillie Street'; "Tillyloss' (where Sir James was born) 'Newton Bank,' and so on, although the aggrieved author made indirect protests.

When remonstrance became more general it was met with the rebuke Maudlin sentiment,' and the crushing inquiry, 'Wha was Jamie Barrie, ony wa'?' But presently an inhabitant of Kirriemuir whose family has been established there since the sixteenth century, refused to allow a water-pipe to be run through one of his fields until the council agreed to restore the old street names. For reasons of plumbing, then, rather than of literature, Kirriemuir is still recognizable to-day to the lover of Barrie's works.

A MEMORIAL TO 'HIGHLAND MARY' A NEW memorial is to be erected to Mary Campbell, the 'Highland Mary' of Burns's poem, at the point where the Fail joins the River Ayr. On May 14,