f bankruptcies; then run your eye down the
police cases; and, if you fail to find my name anywhere, you
can say to your mother in a tone of calm satisfaction, "Mr.
Dodgson is going on _well_."

* * * * *

CHAPTER XI

(THE SAME--_continued_.)

Books for children--"The Lost Plum-Cake"--"An Unexpected
Guest"--Miss Isa Bowman--Interviews--"Matilda Jane"--Miss
Edith Rix--Miss Kathleen Eschwege.

Lewis Carroll's own position as an author did not prevent him from
taking a great interest in children's books and their writers. He had
very strong ideas on what was or was not suitable in such books, but,
when once his somewhat exacting taste was satisfied, he was never
tired of recommending a story to his friends. His cousin, Mrs. Egerton
Allen, who has herself written several charming tales for young
readers, has sent me the following letter which she received from him
some years ago:--

Dear Georgie,--_Many_ thanks. The book was at Ch. Ch.
I've done an unusual thing, in thanking for a book, namely,
_waited to read it_. I've read it _right through_!
In fact, I found it very refreshing, when jaded with my own
work at "Sylvie and Bruno" (coming out at Xmas, I hope) to
lie down on the sofa and read a chapter of "Evie." I like it
very much: and am so glad to have helped to bring it out. It
would have been a real loss to the children of England, if
you had burned the MS., as you once thought of doing....

[Illustration: Xie Kitchin as a Chinaman. _From a
photograph by Lewis Carroll_.]

The very last words of his that appeared in print took the form of a
preface to one of Mrs. Allen's tales, "The Lost Plum-Cake," (Macmillan
& Co., 1898). So far as I know, this was the only occasion on which he
wrote a preface for another author's book, and his remarks are doubly
interesting as being his last service to the children whom he loved.
No apology, then, is needed for quoting from them here:--

Let me seize this opportunity of saying one earnest word to
the mothers in whose hands this little book may chance to
come, who are in the habit of taking their children to
church with them. However well and reverently those dear
little ones have been taught to behave, there is no doubt
that so long a period of enforced quietude is a severe tax
on their patience. The hymns, perhaps, tax it least: and
what a pa