Mark Edmonston did not wear his heart on his sleeve, but he started as his eye caught a bill on the noticeboard outside Bow Street Police Station. It was headed, in black, aggressire capitals, "Murder," and it contained the usual vile reproduction of a photograph-a photograph for which he would, in the days when he culti rated a moustache and small "sideblinds," have passed as the original. The portrait was astonishingly like the Mark Edmondson of three years ago.

His companion noticed his momentary surprise, and, following his glance, thought that the cause was the announcement as a whole. "You're not George Dixon, wanted for the Plymouth murder, are you?" he asked, jocularly. "If you are, I'd better arrest you at once."

"No; I've done nothing yet to make the police or the public interested in my features," said Edmondson carelessly. "The fact is, Mr. Dobson,"he paused for a moment, and then continued, obviously as the result of second thoughts-"I once knew a face remarkably like that villainous visage."

Looking again at the bill, he followed Inspector Dobson into the police-station. After jotting down in his note-book a few details of an arrest, he hurried down to the Comet office in Fleet Street, and was soon closeted with his editor.

"I've just hit on a scheme for proving how grossly incompetent our detectives are," he began.

"Yes?" observed the chief calmly. He was not prone to fall into raptures over his young men's feats in eccentric journalism. Although he was then publishing a series of scathing

articles on the administration of Scotland Yard-sensational "copy" was uncommonly scarce-he listened with much the same air that he would have assumed if the reporter had asked for an increase of salary.

Edmondson then related how surprised he had been on seeing the Plymouth murderer's portrait. "Now," he proceeded, "what I propose is this: Suppose I go to Clarkson's, get made up as Dixon-that won't be a very difficult matter-and ramble about for a few hours, shoving myself right under the very nose of the police. The chances are that nobody will identify me as the wanted man. If I am not pulled up-well, that will be another proof of the incapacity of the detective force. If, on the other hand, I should be arrested, I can easily regain my liberty by throwing off all disguise and explaining that I wanted 'copy.' In any case I can do a personal-experience article."

"All right," said the editor, turning to his desk. "Take the thing in hand at once."

The reporter left the office in a complacent mood. He thought he saw his way to creating a sensation. Returning to Bow Street, he carefully perused the description of the murderer, and then walked over to Wellington Street and plunged straightway into Clarkson's. When he came out again, he was a fac-simile of Dixon, as well as of his former self.

As he walked along the Strand he surveyed the reflection of his figure in shop windows with increasing delight; but when he reached Charing Cross he tried to place himself in the position of the hunted man. First, he circled Trafalgar Square, thence making his way leisurely to Hyde Park

Corner. Then he perambulated Regent Street for half an hour. All the while he looked every constable he met straight in the face, and favored those whom he imagined to be "Yard men" with a prolonged stare. But, much to his disgust, they took no more notice of him than of any other unit of London's millions.

"The idiots!" he mentally exclaimed, as he skirted Leicester Square. "A murderer might walk about in broad daylight for a whole week without being arrested."

When he again arrived at Charing Cross he hardly knew what to do. So far his ramble had been productive of hardly any incident. There had not, indeed, been a single event worth a couple of lines of "copy." And yet he was tired of masquerading as a murderer. Should he return to the office, or was it worth while to prowl about for another hour? As he stood on the curb, disappointed and irresolute, a hand was laid gently on his shoulder, and simultaneously a voice whispered in his ear, "Mr. Dixon."

Edmondson's heart throbbed violently as he wheeled round. "At last!" he exclaimed. "So you have found me, then?"

The owner of the hand was a shabbily-dressed man, whom the reporter had not, to his knowledge, ever seen before. His whole air was mysterious, and he glanced furtively from right to left, as if desirous that the attention of passers-by should not be attracted. "Not a word," he said warningly, raising a very dirty forefinger.

"Oh, I know all about that," returned Edmondson airily. "Your wushup, I cautioned the prisoner, etc."

"Recognized you in a moment, but I've only just seen you," went on the stranger, hurriedly; and, thrusting something into Edmondson's breast

pocket, he instantly darted away, and was quickly swallowed up in the flowing tide of humanity.

The reporter was for some moments too much astonished to move or speak; he could only gaze after the man open-mouthed. What did it mean? Here he had been practically caught only to be let go again! Ah, what was in his pocket? It was an envelope, sealed but unaddressed. Hastily tearing it open, he found inside short note:

Tuesday.

Shall have the money for you on Thursday night. Will be at St. Pancras in time for you to catch the midnight train to L'pool.

Instantly a flood of light dawned on him. He had been mistaken for the murderer, not by a detective, but by an emissary of the man's friends, who were assisting him to fly from England! Doubtless the fugitive was then in town, and should have been at Charing Cross at about the time he (Edmondson) was there.

"Was there ever such a coincidence --or such luck?" thought the reporter. "Anything more extraordinary I never heard of. Why, this little adventure will be worth no end of 'copy.' I must find Dobson."

Hailing a cab, he drove to Scotland Yard, and, giving a constable one of his own cards, asked to see Inspector Dobson. He was shown into a small room, and presently that gentleman entered. When he caught sight of his visitor he seemed not a little perplexed, glancing two or three times with knitted brows from Edmondson's face to the bit of pasteboard.

The reporter burst into deep-chested laughter. "It's all right," he said. Then he told the detective of his quest for "copy" and its wholly unexpected result. "Here is the letter," he con

cluded, pulling from his pocket the note given to him at Charing Cross, "and, unless I am greatly mistaken, it will lead to the arrest of the Plymouth murderer.

Inspector Dobson read and reread the message, smiling massively the while. "Capital!" he exclaimed.

"Isn't it?" asked the reporter, gleefully. "It gives the whole thing away."

"Just so," said the Inspector. "And you've put us in for a smart capture by a plan to show us up! By the way, what are you going to do about your article now?"

"That depends upon circumstances," responded Edmondson cautiously.

The detective looked at the note. 66 "Tuesday.' It is now Thursday; so he's going to cut down to Liverpool to-night."

"To think of his taking the highroad to America!" said Edmondson, with scorn. "He couldn't have a dog's chance of getting through in any circumstances. What an ass he must

be!"

"Criminals of his class generally are," said the detective sententiously. "What about to-night?" he queried, abruptly. "You'll turn up at St. Pancras?"

"Certainly."

"Do so, by all means," said the Inspector. "You'll have a big sensation to-morrow. I'll meet you outside the station, opposite the clock-tower, at half-past eleven-no, say a quarter past."

Shortly after eleven o'clock the reporter was at the appointed place of meeting. Inspector Dobson was not there, nor did he put in an appearance at the quarter-hour. Edmondson Chambers's Journal.

paced to and fro, fuming with impatience and frequently glancing at the clock, till the hands indicated that in ten minutes the express to the north would start on its long journey. Still there was no sign of the detective. The reporter, his mind teeming with a thousand forebodings, then strolled up to the departure platform. Beginning at the guard's van, he walked from end to end of the midnight train, looking in every compartment; but, to his bitter chagrin, he could not see anybody in the least like his mental portrait of the Plymouth murderer. Scarcely had he reached the engine than there was a banging of carriagedoors, a waving of lamps, a mellow whistle, and then the train moved out of the station.

"Confound it!" muttered Edmondson, as he watched the red light on the rear van grow fainter and fainter. "Neither Dobson nor the murderer here. What's happened now?"

The question remained unanswered till the following morning, when the pressman found on his desk a letter from Inspector Dobson:

"Our detectives," wrote that gentleman, "may be 'asleep' (Comet, August 14), but they are sufficiently wideawake to hoax some enterprising but credulous journalists. By accident I saw you go into a certain establishment this morning, and I also saw you-though not by accident-come out again. I had you watched, soon gether, I had you watched, soon guessed your game, and proved that I was right by means of the letter you received. I hope you were not seriously inconvenienced by your journey to St. Pancras last night."

T. W. Wilkinson.

Rudyard Kipling's reputation in prose and verse has been made with almost meteoric suddenness. He is not yet quite thirty-three years old, and his first published volume, "Departmental Ditties," appeared only twelve years ago. Of the American edition of his latest book, "The Day's Work," (Doubleday & McClure, publishers) twenty five thousand copies were ordered in two weeks.

Mrs. Oliphant's "Annals of the House of Blackwood" is to be continued by the publication of a third volume, which brings the history of the house down to the death of Mr. John Blackwood in 1879. This volume is written by Mr. Blackwood's daughter, Mrs. Gerald Porter, and its interest is enhanced by numerous personal reminiscences of George Eliot, Bulwer Lytton, Thackeray and other authors whose writings bore the Blackwood imprint.

As gratifying evidence of the perennial freshness of Miss Austen's novels, Andrew Lang mentions the fact that "Northanger Abbey" is now appearing in a great French newspaper; and he remarks of Miss Austen:

Nobody makes a to-do about Miss Austen's private life and adventures— only her genius endures. We are not troubled with disquisitions about her relations. Her miniatures live like Cooper's; her mirth is as immortal as that of Cervantes; her characters are household memories.

The scene of Gilbert Parker's latest story, "The Battle of the Strong," (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers), shifts from the Isle of Jersey to France, and the time is during the wars of La Vendée. The author disavows for the book all claim to be considered an historical novel; but his coloring is so true and vivid, and the struggles of those stirring times are VOL. 1. 31

LIVING AGE.

so strongly portrayed that the title would not be misapplied. The qualities which drew so many interested readers to "The Seats of the Mighty" are fully displayed in this later ro

mance.

The Academy makes note of the fact that, although the number of highpriced books in the lists of English publishers this season is phenomenal, one class of expensive books is hardly represented at all. The éditions de luxe of popular novels by writers of the day, which were much in evidence a few years ago, are now wholly wanting. The illustrator and decorator are busy on the works of standard authors, but the public, if its taste is accurately gauged by the publishers, does not care to lavish its money upon costly editions of modern novels. That is evidence of good taste.

Pope's line, "The proper study of mankind is man," is modified nowadays to read that the proper study of mankind is children. The prevailing interest in that subject has suggested to Louise E. Hogan the thought of observing closely and recording minutely every recognizable mental process of a particular child, from the age of three months to his eighth year. These observations, embellished with several hundred reproductions of the drawings of the child studied, are published in a volume entitled "A Study of a Child" (Harper & Bros., publishers). It is a noveľ and suggestive compilation, whose obvious fidelity gives it value.

England seems to have entered upon a new epoch of cheap magazines of enormous circulation. The new Harmsworth Magazine, which has been advanced to a circulation of three quarters of a million through an ingeniously conducted controversy