ck figs
bursting with ripeness, like trunk-hose slashed with crimson. The
Major was none of your skimming readers, who glance through a work
of art as if it were a newspaper--measure, weigh it, and deliver a
critical opinion on it, before the more reverential student has
extricated himself from the toils of the first act or opening chapter:
not he; he read every word, and affixed a meaning, right or wrong, to
all the hard, obsolete ones. The dramatic fitness of the characters
was not to be questioned by him, any more than that of the authentic
personages of history. He would reason on their acts and proceedings
as on those of his own intimate acquaintances. He never could account
for Hamlet's madness otherwise than by supposing the Prince must have,
some time or other, got an ugly rap on the head--let fall, perhaps,
when a baby, by a gin-drinking nurse--producing, as in some persons he
had himself from time to time been acquainted with, a temporary
aberration of the wits; a piece of original criticism that has not
occurred to any of the other commentators on this much-discussed
point. Of Iago he has recorded an opinion in an old note-book still
extant, where his observations appear in indifferent orthography, and
ink yellow with age, that he was a cursed scoundrel--an opinion
delivered with all the emphasis of an original detector of crime,
anxious that full though tardy justice should be done to the
delinquent's memory. But his great favourite was Falstaff: "A
wonderful clever fellow, sir," he would say, "and no more a coward
than you or I, sir."

My grandfather proceeded slowly with his meal, holding the cup to his
lips with one hand and turning a leaf with the other--an operation
which he was delaying till a great mosquito-hawk (a beautiful brown
moth mottled like a pheasant), that had settled on the page, should
think proper to take flight. He had lately come from a parade, as was
evidenced by his regimental leather breeches and laced red waistcoat;
but a chintz dressing-gown and a pair of yellow Moorish slippers
softened down the warlike tone of these garments to one more congenial
with his peaceable and festive pursuits. Presently the garden door
opened, and a well-known step ascended to the verandah. Frank Owen,
dressed in a cool Spanish costume, advanced, and, stopping three paces
from the Major, took off his tufted sombrero and made a low bow.

"You are the picture, my dear sir," he said, "of serene enjoyment