The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 9, 1905, Page 21

SAN FR ANCISCO-- CALL, DAY, APRIL 9, 1905. FICTION v LT AL TA to & ST es S o be not their | it be so. save only as to that ,\-a\rhg‘ ause, of novelists who are | ar, for a most promising | come out of Berksley—Mr. | he 1 ET t2 of zne' ot forniz, and to delay | « tion of his first work in thz rt, the fresh published story alled “The Way of the North,” | n be losing - the pleasure of a | thoroughily good story, but to be & L] atory in the duty of loving our n:\'ni the extent king in the excellence of w zens of 1 a at | close to us can do. { with thousands here who read nterest 2 good story for sake would surely find an inten- he produced by a that he is, as it were, a | e same vineyard, and | effor stir eres: in or close € al it is dis- s humor is of that resirained kind which ¢ peovle w 2 beerve railties of their pressions which )" of the literary | nigh degree where the phrase-making be- ting to ths fol- story as golden nta has valuable elivered so naturally from who know them- unpleasing sense seasonably preached to r equa ity; and per- c e of all its merits rare power with which human s shown as a most unjudgabile f good and evil—his charac- human to be blameless, | ke God-made creatures beyond love's forbearing when actions are fully summed up. is represented to be told by | tor, Fedor Delarof, whose haracteristic a rough, di- 4 in telling his story | fousness of quaint and | which enables him to t interestingly detailed nseif —inconsider- often seriously, | task, and how he ically, critically, e characters whose th his own. He is of temper, of fresh skeptical in reli- about himself, | 1aking love to wo- vs his part be staged dience lis- for each strong, origi- an was going | fasc yple no xture » real iness as f the story is la f a world of it so that its makes the life pa of | as the characters their own and each other’s mportance ce is a Russian trading post | Bitka, Alaska, under the who, in the Yole of | is one of the strongest bits ization in the novel. He is indeed, albeit a rough is the tangle of good and which too puzzies the will y condemn and makes us glad e the judgment of such types to knowing wisdom of supernal He is strong, stern, strict, hon- d devoted to the task set for his He is magnanimous some- n forgiving when there are noble He loves women as well as he ever did, but when | ips treats them with vulgar and | pleasing gallantry He always | drink, and has been that | passion which has brought to| ession of a proud, sensi- unhappy half-breed | Baranof. mander sixty-fou is bly is one of the book’s master- rtrayal, and because of her omplications that make the mberness and the strength of the iove | t the story. But to return to| It is wonderful to note how | man keeps a large measure of | and even, as("nllhinm)" as from a throne of supe- titude, Jectures Fedor, who | himself morally his better, till | gnizes his error and feels | in some sense Baranof rules of | A passage which gives at once a f ight into the bearing of Bara-{ f and the why of his self-justifica- | for it, and the nature of the con- | tions at Sitka &t the time, and the quality of the Russian policy, is this: | Fedor's manly anger had befn re- wuked by Baranof. Fedor says: * ‘And r this time, for the sake of the com- pany, I am to hold no wrath®’ Bara- nof straightened himself quickly, and answered before the words had fairly ft my mouth: Not only this, but time,’ he safd with earnestness. is the first lesson that is given to u to learn. In this land the company ! s not a business to be put on and off | a2 whim. To you, to me, and to every soul it touches, it is God himself, nd there are no’ other gods before | It feeds the Indians and clothes | pays the whites, and there is no om under it for anything that does vield obedience to its will. Look the charter granting it which fixes defines its powers. Shelikof, in begetting, promised for us two things: we must be both law and gos- pel to the people we should find, and 2ll, things we must extend the erritory of the Czar. The obligation go out and govern was at first a < misgion and a request, but it was a suest that since has grown by ukaee‘ a command.”*” es hought hero re v ve the story's | | | still, and I found an interest in watch WARRTN CHONCY borseno—s 8 o] < So we comprehend something of the | Russian character and the nature of the discipline which made the forceful | Fedor yield to the mastery of the oter- bearing Baranof as if he were a Czar. Even to submission to lashes of the knout did Fedor bend his manly pride and courage; but the daring act which brought this punishment was done for the woman he loved. Baranof had tried to kiss her against her will when he was half drunk, and Fedor had struck him down. The woman had, from hid- ing, watched his agony and shame, and hurried to meet him with her sympathy on his way home. The style in which he tells of this little episode with his lady is characteristic. Guess how you would like Fedor' from this brief He had no right at that time glimpse to kiss the girl he wanted, but he tried “She pushed me back with her hands. I as ashamed that I had forgotten veelf, and freely let her go. ‘Forgive,’ I sald, humbly, ‘the temptat: w. ore than I could bear.’ * * So I left her standing in the shadow, and took my way back toward the post. 1 suppose & sorrier figure of a lover sel- thus parted company with his In ordinary, my carriage is suf- erect, and 1 affect a decent neatness in my dress; but now my back was stiffened with the pattern of a whip, my hair disheveled, and my legs 80 weak that my walk was only an unseemly drag. But I do not believe that daintier lover ever felt a greater lightness of heart. I forgot not only my present ills, but even the troubles that were to come, 8o that my progress was on air because of pleasant self- communion. Thus, in spite of physical distress, I was able to look back brave- Iy at Petrovith when I met him at the barrack door, and even made my greet- ing with a smile.” Perhaps here is a good place to give little gimpse of the lady of our hero's ve. It's the beginning of his inter- est. She’s on board ship, bound for | Sitka to meet Alexei, between whom and her had been made a youthful en- gagement. Her father is dying. “The girl, of course, made duty of her love. She had small heart for any- thing in life, and sat for hours, dry| eyed and silent, and watched her fath- | | | ersface. * * * Yet hers was not | a despairing grief. I could see that with the splendid courage of youth, | because she hoped the thing might be; | her heart believed there was a chance | he would not die. * * * The first | night ot vigil ghe sat at her father's head hour after hour, as white and still | as if she were no woman, but a marble | mourner set upon his tomb. It was out- side of nature that she should be so | ing her that was close to fascination.” | This girl i Anna Gregorovna. It's| about the love of her that the story | mainly is, but Fedor has a fascinating | way of telling about it that throws his | perscnality centrally upon the stage. | The complexities that make the story of a many-sided interest are that Lieu- tenant Alexei, to whom Anna is going and whom she thinks she loves, has ai- most forgotten her in three years of absence and has become enamored of the half-breed daughter of the com- mander, Baranof; but the Russian law prevents him from marrying her be cause she is not of pure white blood ¥edor, seeing Alexei weakly wavering in his choice between the two girls, falls in love with Anna; the other girl claims that as she owes nothing to | the law she will keep the love of Alexei without the sanction of mar- riage: Anna is ignorant of the state of Alexei's heart, and so for a long time she has to act her part in puzzled darkness as to what it all means. This Lieutenant Alexei is one of; Cheney’s fine studies of the mixture | of good and evil in human nature. Hei is weakly indecisive, but there is much in his case to puzzle the heart, for he had not expected that Anna had taken his yvouthful engagement seriously. At the last he goes to a heroic death— swiftly and on a decision taken in- stantly. After that we cannot wholly Gespige the boy for his perplexities as a lover. “It-was a splendid death, and | i | from songs which were sung by the { land lays about him with his wondertul | play, Some of the best-mingled pathos and humor of the book is in the telling of a | Russian priest of high ideals of mis- sionary work, but who falls a victim to | and the wiles of the native women; they, being just simple children of na- | ture, saw no harm in what they did. Here is the way Fedor tells of tha | priest’s work on a native chief: out the pale. It stirs his soul to think ! of giving up his wives; but the pope | has been as hard as iron, and without | the sacrifice will not seal him to [he: faith. And truly it is an ordeal more | barsh for this native than for the com- | mon man. It is pain enough to lose a | single wife, and the double loss fannot | but bring to him a special gtrain.” { A specially fine chapter is the ninth‘f where the beauty of Anna’s character is 80 revealed by her acts that Fedor's love impulsively deciares itself. Perhaps | the best of all the chapters is the dra- matic one in which he prematureély | presses his suit and wherein our. lover says this of his act: i “I cursed myself for having so rough- | ly driven matters to a head, but the | will stayed grimly with me to see the | thing out to the end, and I set mysel” to save all the salvage possible from | the wreck of my desire.” Mr. Cheney has told short stories be- | fore, but this is his first long one. It ghould not be his last, for he possesses | the art of novel writing to a degree | that will make keen the anticipation of | what he will do after practice if this is only the work of his 'prentice hand. (Doubleday, Page & Co., New York; price $1 50.) BENNETT WRITES OF HEROES OF OLD Artistic is the first word we think of when we take in hand the very| beautifu!l new book called “For thel White Christ,” a story of the days of | Charlemagne, by Robert Ames Ben- | nett, splendidly pictured in colors, each | chapter initialed nicely with a big or- nate letter worth pausing to admire, and every page richly.decorated with designs—all this the art work of Mar- garet West Kinney. The cover is at- tractive gray and green, and on it the image of a fair princess grandly dight | in the gorgeous costume of the heroic days of old. Each chapter is mottoed | harpers and skalds before the high seats of the Norse chiefs. Thus one, which tells of a flerce and picturesquely described fight against great odds, puts | us in pulsation with the temper of the | steel-clashing struggle by the music of this snatch of a Saga battle song: Thought shall bo the harder, heart the keener, Mooa shall ve the more, as our might lessens. The story is about those renowned heroes, Roland and Oliver, and so the world is not yet done singing their praises and recounting their mighty deeds. The book opens with a battle on the sea, and, behold, Danes, North- men and Franks, in all the terrible | fierceness and enormous strength with which history and romance have train- ed our imagination to conceive of them. | There is the excitement and the incen- tive to courage of having on board a beautiful princess child. The Danes call upon Thor, the Franks use the bat- tle cry of “Christ and the King"”; Ro- nd unequaled, save by Oliver, sword until he exhausts himself ‘with cne last blow on the helmet of the sea- king, Hroar. Then there is a duel to he death between the hero Oliver, whose name the book calls in the ar- chaic way, Olvir, and the vi-king im- mensely larger but less expert in sword play. So the story goes with world- | famous warriors to stir the blood, with | i i | occasional shift of scenes when prin- | cesses, queens and bower girls enter to | play their rts, and love, intrigue and | jealousy make their addition to the in- - terest of this recalling of the days ot.’ old romance. , Around the person of the girl Fas- | trada much of the fascination of the story is conjured up. She is the daugh- ter of a fierce warrior and a woman | reputed to be a sorceress, and Fastrada | hase herself much of witchcraft. She lul beautiful, puzzling, enthralling, but | at the start. Shakmut still holds out and is with- | f2scination of the romance. Olvir, the | glorious hero, loves her at first, but | | CALIFORNIAN WHO HAS WRIT- | TEN A PRAISEWORTHY NOVEI | AND AN ILLUSTRATION FROM | ANOTHER BOOK. 3 Finding out is part of the later he doubts her and his love dies. The scene of the crisis of this passage from love to hate between the once de- | voted lovers is dramatically told, and is chosen for illustration with the best picture in “the book. The sorceress mother of the fair Fastrada has pro- ! phesied that the girl would be matea with a king, gray of eye. the message to his betrothed. He is neither king, nor gray of eye. " ‘Were she twice your mother,’ said Olvir, ‘T'd laugh at such witchery.” But the girl turned from her lover's smiling ' look to ponder the prediction. Later Olvir hands her a brooch, which she had dropped. The girl stared fixedly at the garnets with which it was stud- ded. ‘The queen's gems are far more precious,’ she murmured, half aloud. Then the ire of the sea-king flashed: | ‘My heart held the image of a maiden pure and true. * * * Love! You say you love me, when you could stand for an instant welghing my love against a queen’s crown—love!’ The girl winced and looked appealingly into his face. Then her own eyes hardened. The daughter of gray Rudolf was not one to repay scorn with a smile.” That is the dramatic moment which the picture fixes in our imagination. (A. C. M. McClurg & Co., Chicago; $1 50.) BOOK SHOWS BURR IN BETTER LIGHT Aaron Burr fought his famous duel with Alexander Hamilton a hundred years ago, and for this whole century since a weight of either just odium or most cruel calumny has pressed upon his name which exceeds in measure any ever meted out to any other American. The natural love of granting fafr play | to the under dog must make us glad that this at least brave and talented American has this one champion who is persistent in his desire that the hatred against Burr shall not be fixed in our ndtional judgment without the voice of a friend to try to modify or avert the verdict of public opinion. A new historical novel, called “Little Burr.” has just been'issued. It is by Charles Felton Pidgin, the author of “Blennerhassett,” and he is the man who seems to be fighting almost single handed against great odds for the re- demption of Burr's name from infamy. Pidgin has written three books in de- fense of Burr, and expresses an inten- tion of adding to them a life of that ambitious and talented statesman, Al- though “Little Burr” is the latest writ- ten, it is intended that it should be read first of the trilogy on that subject, “Blennerhassett” is the next in order, and last comes the “Climax.” The novel, “Little Burr,” gives an account of the youth of this rival of Hamilton's and of his services to the country dur- ing the revolutionary war. He is pic- tureg as a most engaging personality, highly talented, absolutely brave, and a thorough soldier. General Montgom- ery, charmed with the splendid courage of the youth, made him a captain and placed him on his staff. There s much in the book, too, about Hamilton, but the author has no admiration for that popular idol, and thinks he maligned and undermined Burr in a base way. So much has been written against Burr and in praise of Hamilton that it is interesting to get a littie of the other side of the story. It is to be remem- bered that, although public opinion con- demns Burr, when he was tried no verdict could be found against him. The correspondence between the two great political rivals just preceding the fatal duel, when stripped of any parti- san comment by biographers, forms a pretty good base on which to build a judgment of the actions and the char- acters of the two antagonists when face to face with a crisis in their lives. ‘he men who lifted him uncovered rev- | whether she is a bad or a good woman | Tn this novel of Pidgin's there is this erently before they took him out.” 1s scarcely fair to the reader to tell him | description of Burr's bearing during the | | TASTRADA oiz . TROown TOR. Ti WHITE é%mf g&?i&b—v Olvir bears | | revolutionary war in a moment of con- | test and danger: { “It was not anger that flashed from l those large orbs, nor courage, nor de- l termination merely, but all these com- { bined: and added to them .was a name- iess spell which carried with it an ir- | resistible conviction that whatever they ! threatened was certain to be performed. * * there were no chances to be taken. | no wavering, no hesitation to be hoped for. The man’s whole soul was aroused; all his energies were alive and active.” It is evident from this novel and his other books that this champion of an urpopular man belleves that these fine {eyes of Burr's were not fiction, but fact; and that they held Hamilton when he was face to face with his enemy and with death, and when Hamilton tried to meet their gaze he had no nerve left | to aim and fire true. | However, Pidgin will probably soon | bave to face the music of rebuke, and | Atherton is even now.at work upon a story dealing with Aaron Burr, and her | novel, “The Congqueror,” proves her to | be a fervent admirer of Hamilton and | & feroclous hater of Burr. The deadly {duel may thus be literarily renewed even in our generation; and we will be helped to decide whether Hamilton phil- anthropically fired in the air or whether he was consclous he had wronged. (The Robinson Luce Company, Bos- ton. $150.) — TALE OF THE SOUTH AFTER CIVIL WAR Plantation life in the bitter days of reconstruction is the scene wherein Harris Dickson places the strong and in its principal crisis very strange story of the descendants of a proud race of Spanish people who became Southern by settling in Mississippi. The book is | called “The Ravanels,” and legend has it that their ancestor came with De | Soto and was a “knight of Andalusia, valorous, virtuous and of goodlie dis- cretion in warre.” So this transplanted race flourished as planters and pro- duced men.who fought In all the wars of their country from the times of In- dian massacres to Appomattox. Their women were said to be dark and head- strong, and the - men seem from the story to have had the fauits of pride, vet does their describer speak of them as differing little from their neighbors— “a simple race of men, child-hearted and sincere, full of headlong passions, void of mean ambition, careless of gain and heedful of honor,” they were cava- lier Ravanels. Five Ravanels fought in the Civil | War; only one lived to return to his plantation; he is killed by a scalawag in reconstruction days. Claudia, the | grown daughter of the victim, takes her little brother to the corpse and placing his finger in the cut in the dead man's throat says to the child, “Cap- tain Rudd killed him; never forget that.” No Ravanel could hope for justice i from the courts at that time—there was { no trial for the killing. The only thing for Claudia was to wait till her broth- er grew to manhood. When he did so the inevitable tragedy came in such a strange, mysterious, unlooked for way that it seems as if there must have been such a blending of evil vindictive and noble and lovable traits in young Ravanel that the unseen angels held his hand from murder, although he never wavered in the intent to kill on sight | the man who had killed his father. (J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadeiphia; price $1 50.) N NOTES OF AUTHORS AND THEIR BOOKS “The Story of the Other Wise Man,” by Dr. Henry Van Dyke, has always been one of the most popular little books ever written. As might be ex- pected, a very great number of copies are sold for Christmas gifts, but the ‘Harpers say that the Easter sales are nearly as large. This year, in order to meet the demand. a.special edition ‘has been vprevared. in size an oblong get it in the nick of time, for Gertrude | he quailed before the eyes of the man| Fhag taken toward his subject. volume is a complete history of Rus- sian letters from its very beginnings in | | } 1 i | folklore and mythology down 16mo, and attractively bound in white and gold. Among books in belles lettres to be published this season few will take precedence over Prince Kropotkin's “Russian Literature,” announced by McClure-Phillips for publication early in April. The book bears a subtitle, “Idealities and Realitles,” which shows the point of view that Prince Kropotkin { The to the present day, laying stress upon the great figures; such as Pushkin, Gogol, cte., especially men of recent genera- tions and of our time, such as Tolstoy, Dostolevoki, Tourgenteff and Gorki, with“many of whom Kropotkin was personally acquainted. TR R Early in April the Harpers will pub- lish a book of original and very char- acteristic short stories by Gilbert K. Chesterton, entitled “The Club of Queer Trades.” This club is an asso- ciation to which only those who have invented some absolutely novel way of making a living are eligible. The strange adventures which befell Basil Grant, the originator of the club, In his search for various men of strange professions deserving the honor of membership in the society, afford good material for the effective display of Mr. Chesterton’s gifts of imagination and humor, i A welcome volume to the inareasing thousands who are interested in the ethical culture movement will be Dr. Felix Adler's’'new volume, “The Reli- gion of Duty,” which is announced by McClure-Phillips for publication early in April. The volume gives to the principles and ideals of the ethical cul- ture movement the most complete and authoritative exposition that they have yet had. The leading thoughts from Dr. Adler’s sermons and ad- dresses have been selected afd weld- ed Into consecutive essays under such titles as “First Steps Toward Reli- glon,” ““Changes in the Conception of God,” “The Religion of Duty,” “The Ethical Attitude Toward Pleasure,” “The Ethical Attitude Toward Suffer- ing.” “The Consolation of the Religion of Duty,” ete. Miss Harriet Monroe, in an article on “Literary Women and the Higher Education” in the April Critic has clearly expressed her view that if the results of such education have not yet been great it is béecause the influences have not been sufficlently extensive. For the first time in history the world as we know it is experimenting on women's brains, and the change from the errors of the past to the crude truths of the present naturally in- volves inconveniences. When these hindering details disappear the com- bined minds of men and women will give society a hitherto unknown im- pulse toward the invisible intellectual goal. - . Mrs. Gertrude Atherton in the Ar- gonaut publishes a letter in which she expresses her admiration for the {works of Henry James. What Mrs. Atherton says is so much to the point that I quote one of her most salient paragraphs: “His ‘boom’ has come at the right moment. Not only has the public been carefully prepared— however unwittingly—to reappreciate him, but psychology is once more the fashion, and ne man so artfully com- bines psychological analysis with the great gift of the story-teller as Henry James."—The Critie. . E i Gorky's gospel is something like this: We are riveted to the rotten, and the chief end of life is to know how to gild the nailheads. We are battered beatitudes and godless gods. Our weaknesses are calied virtues; our cringings, tact. Caliban is thrust into the coal bin while Ariel with sen- sen breath, reeking in an atmosphere of mephitic boudoir odors, strums the “Rock of Ages” on the parlor piano. We are ruled by an aristocracy of asses. A pusillanimous and purblind pietism—with a copy of Rabelais se- cretad undar his beit—sits in the sad- Fata ok aia waior & Lt ! — 3 d ether. We live on pound cake, dress in pina- fores and wear bibs. Faugh!'—Benja- min de Casseres, on Gorky, in the *April Critic. 0 8 Book News (John Wanamaker, Philadelphia. publisher) for April is a Hans Christian Andersen centenary number, April 2 marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Danish writer. The effort at commemoration includes “The Life and Career of Hans Andersen” (illustrated): “An- dersen—The Man and the Writer,” by Talcott Williams; “Flashlights on Hans Andersen,” by B. J. Rotart (il- lustrated). and other brief articles, with reproductions of some of the more notable illustrations of the famous “Fairy Tales.” . . There seems to be a disposition just now on the part of many readers to deplore the present popular taste for books that are without enduring liter- ary qualities. Commenting upon the Subject, a writer in the current Har- per's Weekly says it is no new thing . ! for works that are not classies to find buyers; it has been going on for many years. The output of books is much larger to-day than ever before, he says, but so is the output of jam; and ! people buy story-books and books of | entertainment for much the same pur. } pose that they buy jam. The writer goes on to show that the best authors of to-day, Mrs. Ward, Kipling and Mark Twain among others. are not lacking in audiences; and that the in- ferior books do not crowd out the better ones, but merely supplement them. . - . The Blue Book of Missions for 1904 was hardly more than a directory of American Missionary Societies. Yet the demand for it was widespread. Definite suggestions came from China, from Africa and from England that somebody ought to publish annually a serious year book of missions. It was natural that these hints of demand should lead the committee of the Bu- reau of Missions to plan for the issue of 1905 a volume of between 200 and 300 pages instead of a booklet of enve= lope size. The book contains the essence of the Annual Reports (for 1904) of one hundred or more missionary socigties, with statistical tables, and with the latest facts as to area, population, re- ligions and missions (both Protestant and Roman Catholic) In each of the non-Christian countries of the world. It also contains a large collection of miscellaneous information carefully indexed for quick reference. (By mall, $1 10; Funk & Wagnalls Company, publishers, New York and London.) BOOKS RECEIVED. THE PRINCESS PASSES—By C. N. and A. M. Willamson. Henry Holt & Co. FOR THE WHITE CHRIST — By Robert Ames Bennett. A. M. McClurg & Co., Chicago. AN AMERICAN GIRL IN MU- NICH—By Mabel W. Danlels. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. A PRINCE OF LOVERS—By Sir Willlam Magnay. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, THE WINGED HELMET—By Har- old Steele Mackaye. L. C. Page, Bos- ton. THE GOLDEN HOPE—By Robert H. Fuller. Macmillan Company, New York. LADY PENELOPE—By Morley Rob- erts. L. C. Page, Boston. CASTEL DEL MONTE—By Nathan Galizler. L. C. Page, Boston. THE LION'S SKIN—By John 8. ‘Wise. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York. THE WAY OF THE NORTH—By ‘Warren Cheney. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York. “Musings of Uncle Silas,” by B. B. Clarke. American Thresherman, pub- lisher, Madison, Wis. “The Prize to the Hardy.” by Alice Winter. Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indi- anapolis. ‘“Commercial Law,” Gano. York. by D. Curtis American Book Company, New i TO JOIN AMERICAN COLONY IN LONDON Mrs. Freda Clibborn of New Orleans to Occupy Home of the Lomeys. LONDON, April 38.—Willoughby. Hall, a charming place near Rugby, which has been upied by A. D. Loney, a New York financier, for the last eighteen months, is about to be transferred to Mrs. Freda Clibborn os New Orleans. She is said to be weld known in Chicage and New York se- ciety and It is understood that she anxious to join the American colony in London, but for the present she will live in the country. When the Loneys vacated the placé, about three months ago, it was not intended that they should do so permanently. They hoped to return for the London sea- son, but the continued iliness of Mr. Loney forces him to remain with his family in the south of France, and it is doubtful whether they will return itn London this year. 'J. P. MORGAN PURSUED BY FEMININE ADMIRER Financier Flees From London to Escape Attention of the ‘Woman. LONDON, April 8.—J. Pierpont Mor- gan has left for a cruise in the Medi- terranean. A woman admirer of his has been pursding him everywhere, even in the privacy of his own home. Although he does net go out in soclety much, preferring his own immediate circle of friends, she manages to See & great deal of the millionaire and shows her devotion by knitting wonderful woolen walstcoats, which she presents to him herself whenever she is lucky enough to meet him. Morgan has not bought much in the way of curios lately. A gorgeous pair of old vases was found a short while ago by a dealer, who sent them to Prince’s Gate with a bill ready for re- ceipting. Morgan, indignant that it would be taken for granted he buy, sent them back with a cool