NOTHING DOING "
[To the Editor of the SrEcrsroa.] Sin,—I noticed that recently one of the newspapers sum- marized the Chancellor's Budget statement on its contents bill as " Mr. Chamberlain's ' Nothing Doing.' " This is a colloquialism Which I thought dated—like so many other tldngs—from the War time, or thereabouts. I was, therefore, not a little surprised to find that this view was incorrect by reading in De Quincey's Essay " On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth " the following :
" AU other murders look pale by the deep crimson of his ; as an amateur once-said to me in a querulous tone, ' There has been ahsplutely nothing doing since his time, or nothing that's worth speaking of.' " This takes the expression back upwards of seventy years. I wonder if any of your readers can trace it to its origin.—
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