6 NOVEMBER 1897, Page 38

A Story - Teller's Pack. By Frank R. Stockton (Cassell and Co.)—These

short stories, of whose genesis the author gives an interesting account, are hardly up to Mr. Stockton's high-water mark,—to that reached, say, in "Rudder Grange" and "The Squirrel Inn." But they have quite sufficient marks of his peculiar qualities of humour to make them good reading. The imperturbably serious extravagance with which he tells his tales is here, and entertains as much as ever. The young gentle- man who lets his house and then falls so deeply in love with one of his tenants that he cannot make up his mind to go, is a good instance. But the happy touch is when his neighbours find out the cause and lower their good opinion of him. They had thought he was secretly stopping behind to make sure that his tenants did not make off with or abuse any of his property.