Green - Room Recollections. By Arthur W. A Beckett. (Arrow- smith, Bristol.)—This
volume, of course, is readable, but it does not contain so many good stories as we expected ; perhaps it is that the stories are not of a kind which it is easy to appropriate. They want so much setting. One amusing anecdote tells us how the author, then only a small boy, caught the tune of one of the chief ballads in an opera which Balfe was producing. Balfe was an intimate friend of the family, and Mr. A Beckett's mother used to play his music over for him. He whistled it in the street before Balfe's house to the amazement of the com- poser. Then there are two stories about a sporting paper called the Glow-worm. It was run by a company. One of the directors seriously proposed that the whole of the banker's balance should be put on an outsider for the Cambridgeshire. Then it was resolved to sell it, if possible, to Cardinal Manning !
Mr. A Beckett was appointed to conduct the negotiations, and represented the attractions of the paper. It gave the names of the jockeys and the betting at the post. What an opportunity for insinuating sound theology into the minds of sporting men ! The Cardinal did not see it.
Previous page
