his stories that was responsible for my indifference. He is so
incorrigibly reticent. His idea of a well-told ghost story runs on
these lines:--"In the year 189--, in the picturesque village of
C----, hard by the manufacturing town of L----, there lived a wealthy
gentleman named T---- with his cousin F---- and two friends M----
and R----." I simply refuse to take any interest in the spectres of
initials, still less in the spectres of the domestic pets of initials.
I am no bigot; by all means deny your ghost his prerogative of
clanking chains and rattling bones; but there are certain points on
which I do take a firm stand, and this matter of initials is one of
them. Not one of these stories is convincing. Mr. O'DONNELL taps
you on the chest and whispers hoarsely, "As I stood there my blood
congealed, I could scarcely breathe. My scalp bristled;" and you,
if you are like me, hide a yawn and say, "No, really?" There is a
breezy carelessness, too, about his methods which kills a story. He
distinctly states, for instance, that the story of the "Headless Cat
of No. ----, Lower Seedley Street, Manchester," was told to him by a
Mr. ROBERT DANE. In the first half of the narrative this gentleman's
brother-in-law addresses him as _Jack_, and later on his wife says to
him, "Oh, _Edward_." What a man whose own Christian name is so much a
matter of opinion has to say about seeing headless cats does not seem
to me to be evidence.

* * * * *

There seems to be an increasing public for the volume of reflections.
At all events Mr. REGINALD LUCAS, who has already two or three
successes in this kind to his credit, has been encouraged to produce
another, to which he has given the pleasant title of _The Measure of
our Thoughts_ (HUMPHREYS). It is, of course, difficult to be critical