intends to pursue
his historical researches any further, and discover (let us say) virtue
in the Spanish Inquisition and villainy in Sir FRANCIS DRAKE, I shall
load my arquebus to the muzzle.

* * * * *

The hero of _King Jack_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) "made sport," as his
creator, Mr. KEIGHLEY SNOWDEN, says, "nearly a hundred years ago" in
Yorkshire, and incidentally he also made records. For instance, he
cleared four-and-twenty feet at a "run-jump," and with this in my mind I
find it satisfactory to think that he lived in another century, or I
might find myself regretting the eclipse of the Olympic Games. As an
upholder of law and order I ought to be (I am not) ashamed to admire a
man who, to say the least of it, was a very prickly thorn in the side of
the police. My excuse is that _Jack Sincler_ and his brother _Lishe_
were kindly men withal. The game-laws were their trouble, but as far as
I could make out they did not poach for the sake of pelf but from sheer
love of sport. Among poachers they ought, anyhow, to be placed in Class
I., for they loved the open air and the freshness of the morning and all
the things that make for a clean mind in a clean body. _Jack_, though a
shade arrogant at times, is a stimulating figure, human both in his
weakness and his strength; and Mr. SNOWDEN deserves more than a little
gratitude for the care with which he has reproduced the atmosphere of
times that were conspicuously lawless and exciting.

* * * * *

When _Dicky Furlong_, the brilliant and aspiring artist of _The
Achievement_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL) who was in love with _Diana Charteris_,
sloshed her husband, _Lord Freddy_, over the head with his own decanter
(_vide_ Chap. XXI.) he rather overdid it. For "the jagged thing fell
with a sullen thud behind his (_Lord Freddy's_) ear," and that
discourteous nobleman collapsed to rise no more. When the detective
arrived the following noon he convinced himself that there was no
necessity to detain any of the guests, even though no windows had been
found open or doors unlocked, and though Dicky had a contused lip from
the conflict overnight and everybody had coupled his name with
_Diana's_. However, the methodical sleuthhound ran his quarry to earth a
year or two later, just as he had put the finishing touches to his great
(seventeen-foot) canvas. And _Dicky_ took a little bottle out of his
pocket. In fact, our old friend the