29 MAY 1897, Page 24

A Sturdy Beggar and Lady Bramber's Ghost. By Charles Charrington.

(A. Constable and Co.)—We must own that our patience failed before we could get half through the first of these two stories. The second we found more readable. " Ghost " is used in a sense not unknown in the worlds of art and literature,— the man who does the work which brings profit and fame to some one else. Doubtless there are people who are fitted for this role and this only. The "man in gray" who spends his day in the library of the British Museum, dipping for treasures which are to assist others, and who finds his sole pleasure in opium, has the look of being drawn, not, of course, without some idealisation, from life.