the writers, as in the following instance, had always the fear of the
law of libel before their eyes:

We must now request our readers to accompany us into an obscure _cul
de sac_ opening into a narrow street branching off Holborn. For many
reasons we do not choose to be more precise as to locality.

Of course in this _cul de sac_ is a Private Inquiry Office, with a
detective in it. But in defining even him the novelist gives himself no
trouble to arouse excitement in his readers: they have paid their penny
for the history of this interesting person, and, that being done, they
may read about him or not, as they please. One would really think that
the author of the story was also the proprietor of the periodical.

Those who desire (he says) to make the acquaintance of this somewhat
remarkable person have only to step with us into the little dusky room
where he is seated, and we shall have much pleasure in introducing
him to their notice.

--A sentence which has certainly the air of saying, 'You may be
introduced to him, or you may let it alone.'

The coolness with which everything is said and done in penny fiction is
indeed most remarkable, and should greatly recommend it to that
respectable class who have a horror of 'sensation.' In a story, for
example, that purports to describe University life (and is as much like
it as the camel produced from the German professor's self-consciousness
must have been to a real camel) there is an underplot of an amazing
kind. The wicked undergraduate, notwithstanding that he has the
advantage of being a baronet, is foiled in his attempt to win the