OF the author of this book, the publishers tell us
that he has met everyone and been everywhere. He is also, we are assured, one of the wittiest raconteurs in London. We can well believe it. In a book of nearly 300 pages anecdote follows anecdote in what seems sometimes as endless a procession as the figures on a moving staircase. Old colonels, old. actors, old lords, old dignitaries of the Church come before us for a moment, amiable, eccentric, pompous, ludicrous, laughing or being laughed at, till the little story is finished ; the scene changes ; one right good fellosi or remarkable character disappears and another right good fellow or excellent sportsman takes his place. .0r, often it is the author himself who comes before us 'sometimes as the perpetrator sometimes as the victim of the jeSt, but always amiable, always indefatig,ably witty. And, indeed, they are very amusing, many of -these good stories, which he tells straight on, anyhow, one after another, but always apparently with the 'same enjoyment; and yet somehow, as we read them continuously, with so little " setting," so little to recall the fleeting mood, they bring a sense of melancholy, like the scent of faded flowers. It is a book to keep handy and dip into from time to time ; used in this fashion it will charm and refresh us, especially those who care for the best known figures at Eton and Cam- bridge in the days of Mr. Elliot's youth. Every story is not to be taken an pied de la lettre ; we have noticed outwardly innocent sentences beneath which accuracy gives way to chaff, and which the -prefanum vulgus is not intended to per- ceive ; a venial fault in a book so kindly and amusing.
Previous page
