generally (so it was understood) ascetic existence by dining at a smart
restaurant with a galaxy of devoted women, whom he proposed to conduct in
person to a theatre. Such, then, is, or was, the Adulated Clergyman. It is
unnecessary to pursue his career further. Perhaps he quarrelled with his
Bishop, and unfrocked himself; possibly he found himself in a Court of Law,
where an unsympathetic jury recorded a painful verdict against him.

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

My faithful "Co." says he has been reading the latest novel by "JOHN
STRANGE WYNTER," called, _The Other Man's Wife_, as the French would
observe, "without pleasure." As a rule he rather enjoys the works of the
Author of _Bootle's Baby_, and other stories of a semi-ladylike
semi-military character; but the newest tale is one too many for him. The
"man" is a mixture of snob and cad,--say "a snad,"--the "other man" a
combination of coward and bully, the "wife" a worthy mate to both of them.
The plot shows traces of hasty construction, otherwise it is difficult to
account for the "man's" intense astonishment at inheriting a title from his
cousin, and the farfetched clearing up of a sensational West-End murder. My
"Co." fancies that the peerage given to the "man," and the _vendetta_ of
the Polish Countess, both introduced rather late in Vol. II., must have
been after-thoughts. However, the end of the story is both novel and
entertaining. The feeble, fickle heroine is made to marry, as her second
husband, the man who (as an accessory after the fact) has been the murderer
of her first! And the best of the joke is--she does not know it! My "Co."
has also been much amused by a brightly-written Novel, in one volume,
called _A Bride from the Bush_. Mr. E. W. HORNUNG evidently knows his
subject well, and has caught the exact tone, or rather nasal twang of our