Always in the Way; or, Mr. Rummins, with Rod, Hounds,
and Rifle. By Thomas Jeans. (Trischler and Co.)—The author of " The Tommiebeg Shootings" is as pleasant a companion as any one could wish for a railway journey or a solitary evening in cham- bers, and his latest book will prove no disappointment to his many admirers. Contemporary sketches of sporting experiences are frequently spoiled, or at any rate half-spoiled, by over- elaboration ; they are too obviously literary, and the smell of the lamp can be detected by the least sensitive of olfactories; but Mr. Jeans's book is enjoyable mainly because it gives one the impres- sion of having been written for his own enjoyment without a con- stant outlook in the direction of the gentle or critical reader. The character of the shy, awkward, unselfish Mr. Rummins, who is always doing a kindness to somebody, but who cannot rid him- self of the feeling of being " always in the way," is a delightful creation,—the outcome of that best kind of humour which is near of kin to sweet and simple pathos. His adventures are genuinely amusing, because the fun is never forced: it inheres in the situa- tions themselves, and is not the product of an easily learned literary trick. Nothing could well be better than the accounts of poor Rummins's involuntary deer-stalking, his misadventures at the meet, or his encounters with that terrible gorgon, Mrs. General Holdstock ; and as Mr. Jeans evidently loves Nature too well to daub her countenance with rhetorical paint, the descrip- tive passages are not less excellent. There is nothing to inter- fere with the enjoyment of the book except the deplorably crude illustrations, and they can be disposed of with a sharp penknife in less than five minutes.
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