THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS.
P.S.--My faithful "Co." has been reading _The Lazy Tour of Two Idle
Apprentices, No Thoroughfare_, and _The Perils of Certain English
Prisoners_, the joint work of CHARLES DICKENS and WILKIE COLLINS, and
now published for the first time in a single volume. He says that the
book is instructive, inasmuch as it shows the growth of its authors'
collaboration. When the writers started _The Lazy Tour_ they were, so
to speak, like the gentleman seated one day at the organ, "weary and
ill at ease;" they grew more accustomed to one another during _The
Perils_, and attained perfection in _No Thoroughfare_. This last novel
shows no traces of dual workmanship, and might have been the outcome
of a single pen. My "Co." has but one fault to find with Messrs.
CHAPMAN AND HALL (Limited)--he says that the stories deserved better
illustrations.
* * * * *
A VALID EXCUSE.
[A Juror who failed to put in an attendance at the Old Bailey
sent an excuse that he was away on his honeymoon.
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