rted strangulation of a baby and for the second
time in a Saltus _opus_ a dying millionaire leaves his fortune to the
St. Nicholas Hospital. Was Saltus ballyhooing for this institution?
The hero is a modern Don Juan. Alphabet Jones appears occasionally, as
he does in many of the other novels. This Balzacian trick obsessed the
author for a time. The book is dedicated to John S. Rutherford and
bears as a motto on its title page this quotation from Rabusson:
"_Pourquoi la mort? Dites, plutot, pourquoi la vie?_"

In "A Transaction in Hearts"[15] the Reverend Christopher Gonfallon
falls in love with his wife's sister, Claire. A New England countess,
a subsidiary figure, suggests d'Aurevilly. This story originally
appeared in "Lippincott's Magazine" and the editor who accepted it was
dismissed. A year or so later a new editor published "The Picture of
Dorian Gray." Still later Saltus tells me he met Oscar Wilde in London
and the Irish poet asked him for news of the new editor. "He's quite
well," answered Saltus. Wilde did not seem to be pleased: "When your
story appeared the editor was removed; when mine appeared I supposed
he would be hanged. Now you tell me he is quite well. It is most
disheartening." Saltus then asked Wilde why Dorian Gray was cut by his
friends. Wilde turned it over. "I fancy they saw him eating fish with
his knife."

"A Transient Guest and other Episodes"[16] contains three short tales
besides the title story: "The Grand Duke's Riches," an account of an
ingenious robbery at the Brevoort, "A Maid of Athens," and "Fausta," a
story of love, revenge, and death in Cuba. If the final cadence of the
book is a dagger thrust the prelude is a subtle poison, rafflesia, a
Sumatran plant, intended for the hero, Tancred Ennever, but consumed
with fatal results by his faithful fox terrier, Zut Alors. The story
is arresting and, as frequently happens in Saltus romances, a man
finds himself no match for a woman. "A Transient Guest" is dedicated
to K. J. M.

The slender volume entitled "Love and Lore"[17] contains a short
series of slight essays, interrupted by slighter sonnets, on subjects
which, for the most part, Saltus has treated at greater length and
with greater effect elsewhere. He makes a whimsical plea for a modern
revival of the Court of Love and in "Morality in Fiction" he derides
that Puritanism in American letters whose dark scourge H. L. Mencken
still pursues with a cat-o'-nine-tails and a hand grenade.