"A - Hunting We Will Go " A DELICIOUS vein of fun

and sentiment runs through all Mr. Garnett's book-hunting tales. Now and then a critical reader may find the gaiety of the sportsman a little too rollicking, or his pathos a little too sentimental, but laughter

or a lump in the throat is not unlikely to delay the expression of such thoughts.

To readers of " Blackwood " the stories are not new ; they have already delighted a wide public. No one needs to be bookish in order to appreciate them. As character-studies alone, apart from their diaphanous little plots, they are indeed worth reading. The gentle old lawyer who never forgets his first love and whose deep experience of life has taught him to be on the look-out for innocence, will appeal to Grosvenor Square or Hampstead more surely than to Chelsea, and so, perhaps, will the charming old lady who has asked no more of life than the perfect satisfaction of being " Tom's Sister."

Both portraits must be allowed to be a little sentimental in conception, but the accomplished simplicity of Mr. Garnett's style makes all that he writes convincing.

A wide variety of characters cross Mr. Garnett's path in the pursuit of his hobby. They range from a London charwoman and a poor little shrimp of a child, whom he takes to the country, to all sorts and descriptions of men and women of letters, obscure and distinguished, real and imaginary. The charwoman who unconsciously possesses a treasure in the shape of a first edition of The Pickwick Papers is very poor indeed. Every penny of spare money goes to pay several shillings a week to a lady whose " wash " was stolen while drying upon the roof of Mrs. Beetles' " buildings." Mrs.

Beetles' first view of the ocean was obtained from a house 500 feet above sea-level. Deceived by the horizon line she made a comment which would have entirely pleased a modern artist. " I did not know that it went up," she said, and presently started up hill to find it 1 Judging by this book one would think that Mr. Garnett had never met any really disagreeable people. In the tolerance of his heart he condemns no one, even the amusing scoundrel who is always retailing his audacious misdeeds and striking his horrified listener dumb, by saying with deferential warmth, " Glad you think I did right."

Are we to take the tales about real people, for instance, Watts-Dutton, and Swinburne, and Ford Madox Brown for literally true ? We do not feel sure. Are we to believe that " Mr. Watts " who was a solicitor as well as a poet, lost in his untidy, shuttered up and cluttered up office in Lincoln's Inn some valuable papers consigned to his keeping by Ford Madox Brown, who could get no answers to his letters of remonstrance, except invitations to lunch and promises to " look again."

" I have looked and looked' (poor Watts lamented to Mr. Garnett), Swinburne has looked and looked. We have found most wonderful things—bank-notes, unpublished poems, essays criticisms, plays—even letters of love—but no law papers.'

' So that is why you have not " moved," as Madox Brown puts it.'

Exactly.' ' And asked him to Putney.'

' Yes.'

' And asked me there.'

' Well, yes ! I have had a most ghastly, tragic time. You must be told that Swinburne, after the second lunch, declared he would not meet Brown again ; and to persuade him to come in to the third one, I had to give him my unique copy—entirely " uncut "—of " The Mourning Bride " I A wrench—a sad, sad wrench ! ' "

Mr. Garnett finds the papers, and lunches at Putney. Swinburne is in a good temper and requires no bribe to make him behave himself, unless we count two plates of bread and butter and " about a pound " of apricot jam for his tea.

Are there, still ghosts to be met in the literary world, or do they belong to the past ? Do unknown writers still write well-known novelists' novels, when the latter are pressed for time ? That there were such this reviewer has no difficulty in believing, for he knew one quite well. She was an Irish woman. So was the " ghost " about whom Mr. Garnett writes, but his lady was youngish, thin, single and poor, whereas the other was stout and well-liking, married, and

moderately well-off. She wrote reviews for — (a well-

known weekly journal) a long time ago, and whispered her secret to both its editors, when the flattering reviews of her illegitimate literary offspring made disclosure too tempting. " Cousin Kate," on the other hand, never told at all. It came out by accident, just before she starved to death, or, more correctly, succumbed to the hardships of poverty. Seriously, it is a very sad story, and neither party got their deserts.

But what, it may be asked, has all this to do with book- hunting ? Well, sometimes the sporting element does seem something of an afterthought, but, early or late, it always comes in. Indeed, there is a great deal to be learned from these pages about the prices commanded by rare books and rare editions and about the humours of auctions. Amazing prices are given for first editions of books of which everybody can buy the tenth or fifteenth or whatever it may be for a shilling or so. The company who attend the auctions seem rather eccentric. " One man stares fixedly in front of him ; if he looks upwards, that is a bid. Another scratches his ear ; that is a bid. Another turns away ; and that, also, is a bid. The auctioneer is conversant with his customers' several peculiar signs. And the sale goes on." Another bidder, who never speaks, constantly emits a loud " Squawk," which is taken to mean a guinet. He apparently is well known and has a long purse, " bidding against him was a vain and futile proceeding, for just as the hammer was about to fall—Squawk I he capped the last bid." The horrid old spoil-sport 1