3 DECEMBER 1898, Page 29

Mr. Hutchinson had made up his mind beforehand as to

the dialect in which ho meant to tell it. When, on one page, we find the hero ejaculating, "haze me for a malindgering sodger," while on another he talks of " an acoustic fantasy," the incon- sistency is too glaring to pass. But for this blemish, the tale is well written.

The new annual volume of St. Nicholas does not perhaps con- tain so much of "the fairy-tale business "—which, besides, is not only better understood, but more thoroughly enjoyed by adults than by children—as some of its predecessors, but it is very bright, very readable, and very varied in its contents all the same. Some of the short stories, such as " Margery and the Captain," are prettily pathetic.