would prevail? Mr. Gillette was much interested in Rackham
books. Bought a great many. In stock at this time was a very
elaborate set in several quarto volumes of "Alice in Wonderland," most
ornately bound, with Rackham designs inlaid in levant of various
colours in the rich purple levant binding. The illustrations within
were a unique, collected set of the celebrated drawings made by various
hands for this classic. The price, several hundred dollars. Mr.
Gillette was torn with temptation here. And yet was it right for him
to be so extravagant? Periodically he came in, impelled to inquire if
the set had yet been sold. If somebody only would buy the set--why,
then, of course--it would be all over.

In our contemplation of the literari we have amused ourselves with
philosophic reflection. We recalled that old saw of Oscar Wilde's (as
George Moore says of something of Wordsworth's) about the artist
tending always to reproduce his own type. And we thought what an
excellent model to the illustrator of his own "Married Life of the
Frederic Carrolls" Jesse Lynch Williams would have been. No name
itself, it struck us, would be happier for Mr. Williams than Frederic
Carroll--if it were not Jesse Lynch Williams. A "colletch" chap
alumnus. A typical, clever, exceedingly likable young American
husband, fairly well to do: it is thus we behold him. Slender, in an
English walking coat, smiling agreeably. One, we thought, you would
think of as a popular figure in a younger "set."

It is irrelevant, certainly, but we must acknowledge our indebtedness
to a lady customer who supposed that the "Married Life of the Frederic
Carrolls" was an historic work, dealing with the domestic existence of
the author of "Alice."

Thomas Nelson Page, autographing presentation copies of "A Coast of
Bohemia," remarks, "This is one of the rewards of poetry." At this
task, or, rather, pleasure, Mr. Page spent a good part of several
successive days in the store. A gentleman, with a flavour of "the
South" in his speech, very like his well-known pictures; stocky; an
effect of not having, in length, much neck. Light, soft suit, or very
becoming Prince Albert, and high hat. "He will wear you out," whispers
a colleague to us; "he has no idea where any of his friends live. I
doubt if he knows where he lives himself." The junior Mr. Weller, we
recollect, when an inn "boots" referred to humankind in terms natural
to his calling. "There's a p