ad, as emotion and interest demand. Does anybody deny that the
highest proof of special genius is the possession of the instinct
to adapt itself to the matter in hand? Nothing more need be said.

Now, if you will observe carefully such a boy when he comes to a
certain point in "Robinson Crusoe" you may recognize the stroke of
fate in his destiny. If he's the right sort, he will read gayly
along; he drums, he slaps himself, he beats his breast, he
scratches his head. Suddenly there will come the shock. He is
reading rapidly and gloriously. He finds his knife in his pocket,
as usual, and puts it back; the top-string is there; he drums the
devil's tattoo, he wets his finger and smears the margin of the
page as he whirls it over and then--he finds--

"The--Print--of--a--Man's--Naked--Foot--on--the--Shore!!!"

Oh, Crackey! At this tremendous moment the novel-reader, who has
genius, drums no more. His hands have seized the upper edges of the
muslin lids, he presses the lower edges against his stomach, his
back takes an added intensity of hump, his eyes bulge, his heart
thumps--he is landed--landed!

Terror, surprise, sympathy, hope, skepticism, doubt--come all ye
trooping emotions to threaten and console; but an end has come to
fairy stories and wonder tales--Master Studious is in the awful
presence of Human Nature.

For many years I have believed that that
Print--of--a--Man's--Naked--Foot was set in Italic type in all
editions of "Robinson Crusoe." But a patient search of many
editions has convinced me that I must have been mistaken.

The passage comes sneaking along in the midst of a paragraph in
common Roman letters and by the living jingo, you discover it just
as Mr. Crusoe discovered the footprint itself!

I wish I might tell the reason why no scoundrel was ever a novel reader;
that I might browse for the benefit of those who have never been translated
into ecstacies over "good old honest scoundrelism and villains" or describe
my friend's first blinding and unselfish tears that watered the grave of
Helen Mar, but these are among the delicious experiences of the "Vice"
itself, so sacred that other hands, no matter how loving, may not be laid
upon them.

* * * * *

Allison has a very happy faculty of hitting upon titles for essays and
addresses that stir the imagination an