_Question._ I believe you are a very rapid reader of fiction?
_Answer._ Certainly. My average rate is three and a half volumes a
day. This gives me plenty of time for meals, sleep and skipping.
[Illustration: Through Booking, First-Class and otherwise.]
_Q._ Do you skip a great deal?
_A._ A very great deal. For instance, I have skipped about two-thirds
of _Isa_, by the Editor of the _North-Eastern Daily Gazette_, in
spite of it being only in a couple of volumes, and containing for an
introduction the following rather lengthy sentence:--"If the devil
were in a laughing mood, what could seem more grimly humorous to him
than the vision of a fair young spirit striving consciously after
ethereal perfection, but overweighted unconsciously by the bonds and
fetters of human infirmity and passion, and dragged at last headlong
down the abysmal descent to perdition?" "Abysmal" is good--very good.
_Q._ Well, and what of the book itself?
_A._ Chiefly horrors. Nightmare after a pork-chop supper I fancy.
_Nelly Jocelyn_ (_Widow_), is a welcome contrast. One of the best
things Miss JEAN MIDDLEMASS has done. The character of _Paul Cazalet_
capitally drawn and foreign local colouring admirable.
_Q._ What do you think of _His Own Enemy_?
_A._ Fancy the title somehow must refer to the Author. Clerical
sketches full of unconscious humour. Two volumes but _very_ big ones.
Quite a relief to get to _A False Start_,--by HAWLEY SMART, which is
most entertaining. But in this case the name of the Author is a safe
guarantee for something worth reading.
_Q._ What do you think of _A Modern Circe_?
_A._ I fancy it is not quite so good as _Molly Brown_, by the same
Author.
_Q._ What do you know of _Molly Brown_?
_A._ Nothing--I have not read it.
_Q._ What have you to say about _Scamp_?
_A._ That it is by the Author of _The Silent Shadow_, which I fancy
must be the sequel of another novel called _The Garrulous Ghost_. In
the first chapter the heroine _Scamp_, (a young lady) is discovered up
a tree from which coign of vantage she throws a yellow-paper-covered
novel at the gardener's head.
_Q._ The first chapter then must be vastly entertaining?
_A._ Vastly. I am absolutely dying to read the chapters that follow
it, and will--some day.
_Q._ What is _Brother or Lover_ about? _A._ I don't know--do you?
_Q._ This is trifling! Pray describe _Out of Tune_.
_A._ Ought to have been called _Out of Paganini_--founded upon that
distinguished fiddler's life, although (as the Author says) "it is
necessarily speculative as to its details."
_Q._ Have you read _In the King's Service_?
_A._ Some of it. Fancy it deals with the Peninsular War.
_Q._ How about _Jill and Jack_?
_A._ Book I imagine written before the title. Rather hard work to get
up the hill which ends with the last chapter.
_Q._ What is _Hidden in my Heart_?
_A._ Seemingly the words which finish the third volume, "It is
two years now since _Hubert_ died, and to-morrow is my second
wedding-day."
_Q._ Is this the first novel that the Authoress has written?
_A._ Oh dear no. She has also published _Out of Eden_, _Quite True_,
and a book which apparently refers to the late-in-life "finishing" of
an uneducated ecclesiastic called _The Vicar's Governess_.
_Q._ Don't you think that you are rather hard upon the novelists?
_A._ I hope not. I am sure I owe them a deep, deep debt of gratitude.
_Q._ How so? _A._ Without them I should be a victim to insomnia.
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[Illustration: A REMINISCENCE OF THE VERY DRY WEATHER.
_Secretary to Water-Works._ "TUT-T-T-T. 'GETTING VERY SERIOUS, Y'KNOW!
IF THIS DROUGHT CONTINUES, I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE----"
_Friend._ "LOOK HERE,--CAN'T YOU TURN ON SOME WHISKEY IN THE SERVICE?
MY DEAR FELLOW, IT WOULD INFALLIBLY PREVENT WASTE!"]
* * * * *