ppreciate Allison's "Delicious Vice;" no more can he
Field's "Dibdin's Ghost" who has not smuggled home under his coat some
cherished volume at the expense of his belly--and possibly someone else's
too! "The Delicious Vice!" What a tart morsel to roll on one's tongue in
anticipation and to speculate over before scanning the pages to discover
that the vice is not "hitting the pipe" or "snuffing happy dust" but is as
Allison paints it with whimsical but affectionate words, "pipe dreams and
fond adventures of an habitual novel-reader among some great books and
their people." These are the all too skimpy pages through which its author
rhapsodizes on the noble profession, makes a keen distinction between novel
readers and "women, nibblers and amateurs," brings up reminiscences of
"early crimes and joys" and discourses learnedly, discerningly and
entertainingly upon "good honest scoundrelism and villains." Every page is
the best and when the last has passed under your eye, you again begin
square at the beginning and read it all over. You are here only to have the
appetite spiced by one single gem quoted from the first novel for the boy
to read which of course is "Robinson Crusoe:"

... There are other symptoms of the born novel-reader to be
observed in him. If he reads at night he is careful so to place his
chair that the light will fall on the page from a direction that
will ultimately ruin the eyes--but it does not interfere with the
light. He humps himself over the open volume and begins to display
that unerring curvilinearity of the spine that compels his mother
to study braces and to fear that he will develop consumption. Yet
you can study the world's health records and never find a line to
prove that any man with "occupation or profession--novel-reading"
is recorded as dying of consumption. The humped-over attitude
promotes compression of the lungs, telescoping of the diaphragm,
atrophy of the abdominal abracadabra and other things (see
Physiological Slush, p. 179, et seq.);
but--it--never--hurts--the--boy!

To a novel-reading boy the position is one of instinct like that of
a bicycle racer. His eyes are strained, his nerves and muscles at
tension--everything ready for excitement--and the book, lying open,
leaves his hands perfectly free to drum on the sides of the chair,
slap his legs and knees, fumble in his pockets or even scratch his
he