He (to himself, in surprise and indignation). Well, I'm dashed. She's forgotten to take the letter. That finishes any chance of getting a game with Tom Hargraves on Saturday. However, I've got her this time. (A step is heard approaching the door.) Here she is. I'll play cunning. (He pockets the letter.)

(She enters all smiles.)

She. Oh, you're back, are you? Had a good day?

He. Not so bad. Thirty-eight brace and a few hares and rabbits. I've brought home three brace.

She. Yes, I saw them in the hall. He. Then you must have known I was back.

She. Yes, I half guessed that my very own had returned.

He. Then why did you say, "Oh, you're back, are you?"

She. Why shouldn't I?
He. Well, if you knew-

She. I didn't say I knew. I said I half guessed. And then when I saw you-no, I mean when I beheld the splendor of your face is that Tennyson or you, Charles?-anyhow, when I came into the room and found you there safe and sound I was too agitated to guess the other half, and I just asked you so as to make sure. See? And there's one more thing I'm going to say-Charles, I will say it; you can't stop me and it's this: it isn't at all nice of you to lay really clever traps like that for a poor weak woman. No, it isn't nice.

He. Well, but

She. Not another

been a monster. He. But

word. You've

She. Yes, you've behaved like " monster, a male monster in horrible gaiters and great muddy hobnailed boots; and you've behaved like that to a poor woman whose only fault(She affects to break down, turns her head away and dabs her eyes with a handkerchief.)

He (with a pounce). That's one of my handkerchiefs.

She (still dabbing). Is it?

She (to the ceiling). Listen to him. Here's a man who's simply rolling in handkerchiefs, and he grudges me one of all his thousands, (To him.) Charles, have I been mistaken in you all these years? (With a swift change.) Now let's talk of something else.

He. By the way, I suppose you took that letter?

She (blankly). Letter? What letter? He. The letter I wrote to Tom Hargraves, asking him to play golf on Saturday. You said you were going that way in the pony-trap and you'd drop it at the house.

She (evasively). Oh, that letter. IHe (warming to his work). Yes, it was most important he should have it, because he said if he didn't hear from me he'd take on Harry Collingwood.

She. Yes, yes, I remember; you told me all about it.

He (inexorably). Of course you took it. She (after a furtive look at the writingtable). Well, it isn't where you left it. is it?

He. No, it isn't.

She. Well, then I suppose somebody must have taken it.

He. I agree.

She. Why not imagine it was mesorry, Charles-I mean, why not imagine it was I?

He (producing the letter from his pocket and handing it to her). Because here it is.

She (inspecting it). So it is. What a queer thing. Do men often do that, Charles?

He. Do what?

She (gaily). Ask their wives to deliver a letter and then carry it off in their own pockets?

He. I didn't.

She. Charles, how can you? I saw you with my own eyes take it out a moment ago.

He. But I found it on the table here when I came in.

She. Now, Charles, that's really naughty. You know you've been carrying it about with you all day long. You really mustn't be such a funny forgetful bear any more.

He (in despair). Then you admit you didn't take it.

She (calmly). dreamt of denying it. How could I take it when you'd got it tucked away in your dear old pocket. (She looks at the envelope.) Such a nicely written ad

Admit it? I never

Punch,

It is strange that the most practical system of communication-the telephone-which conveys the actual human voice, has until lately had only a limited sphere of action. It must certainly be admitted that since the time of the Italian Meucci and the Americans Graham, Bell and Elisha Gray, who claim to have been the pioneers of the telephonic system, great progress has been made. The telephone was at first only in use in towns for short distances, now it stretches from town to town and is every day putting out

fresh feelers. Telephony for long distances presents, however, serious technical difficulties which are at present engaging the time and thought of many electricians and scientists, students of the vast subject of tele-communication.

It might be thought that in order to effect communication over long distances it would only be necessary to manufacture apparatus of greater sensitiveness and power. This is however far from being the case, as it has been discovered that the solution of the problem lies not so much in the

perfection of the apparatus as in certain other conditions which are of far greater importance. A submarine cable, a telegraphic line, or for the matter of that a telephonic line, constitutes what is technically called a “capacity” in which the electric energy accumulates. When this "capacity" acquires a certain volume, as is the case with conductors over long distances, the static electrical energy which accumulates in it no longer responds instantaneously

This

the modification of the currents produced by the human voice, the result being that only confused and incomprehensible sounds are received. phenomenon is even more pronounced when telephonic messages are sent under water. This is the chief and only reason why telephonic communication above ground has hitherto been impossible at very long distances, and why it has not been found practicable to apply it to more than a distance of about sixty miles under water. To obviate this difficulty created by distance, it is necessary at present greatly to enlarge the sections of the conductors in the great international lines, where they measure nearly a quarter of an inch in diameter. This is the case with the telephonic line between Paris and Rome, reaching nearly a thousand miles, which, taking into consideration the thickness of the wire, is the longest distance possible. When dealing with lines under water, it is necessary instead to enlarge the insulating casing of the wire. All these remedies are however only palliative, and, as may be imagined, very expensive, and something better is wanted before our

The Outlook.

dream of telephoning across the seas can be realized.

The question has, by reason of its importance, attracted the attention of not a few of the most noted electrical scientists, such as Heaviside, Vaschy, S. P. Thomson, and the great Kelvin, who has rightly been called the father of trans-oceanic telegraphy. Many experiments have been made during the last fifteen years, but without much practical result, and one by one ideas have been given up for fresh ones. Lately, however, success has been attained by Yeatman, Roeber, and by the American, Pupin. The latter has succeeded, after a long series of experiments and by dint of much research, in manufacturing a cable which appears to remedy every defect. The invention is said to have been bought by the well-known German electrical firm of Siemens and Halske for quite a fabu lous sum. The experiments made with the new invention have exceeded all expectations and it has been put into practical use for short distances as, for instance, the telephone across the Lake of Constance, that from Berlin to Potsdam, etc. The Siemens-Halske firm are now perfecting a practical system for the construction and laying of long-distance telephonic submarine cables. So we may expect in the near future that a Londoner, without leaving his house, will be able to carry on a conversation with a person, say, in New York, and to the question which has so often been put, "Is the trans-oceanic telephone possible?" an answer in the affirmative may now confidently be given.

F. Savorgnan di Brazza.

The Houghton Mifflin Co. publish Mr. William S. Bigelow's lecture on "Buddhism and Immortality" which was delivered this year on the extremely elastic Ingersoll foundation at Harvard University. It presents a succinct and on the whole clear outline of the view of Buddhism touching the great question of human immortality.

One of the most noteworthy additions to Everyman's Library (E. P. Dutton & Co.) is a new translation of Goethe's Faust, the work of Mr. A. G. Latham, who accompanies it with an Introduction, and supplements it with adequate notes. The translation is facile and fluent, and true alike to the spirit and the letter of the original. The lyrical parts are especially good.

Joan

Mr. Albert Kinross's "Joan of Garioch" is a detective story with the detectives omitted, the hero supplying their place, and very narrowly escaping the occupancy of that of victim to the villain, who proves to be a villain only because he also is a lover. and the husband to whom she sells herself to save the mercantile honor of her family apparently vanish from the face of the earth, and the search which her betrothed lover makes for her when he returns from the South African war takes him to the Baltic Provinces where he sees a side of Russian affairs strange to Europeans and to Americans. The savage nature of the peasant and the courage of the Germano-Russian noble are strikingly set forth, and also the unscrupulousness of the true Slav. This is one of the best of the recent Russian novels written by Englishmen, perhaps the best taking into account the originality of its scene. The Macmillan Co.

Mr. James Oliver Curwood has chosen the forgotten Mormon settlement on Beaver Island, Lake Michigan, as the scene of his "The Courage of Captain Plum" and has indulged himself in no small quantity of melodramatic adventure while justifying the title. His vessel is robbed by Mormon pirates, and in seeking redress he encounters the Mormon "King," Strang, the typical priestly autocrat of fiction with myrmidons, as unscrupulous and as blood thirsty an assemblage as any heathen land could produce. Assisted by a disaffected member of the "King's" council, he carries off a girl intended to be the monarch's bride, and has the general good luck of the old-fashioned hero. The belligerent passages are very well done, and also the description of the death prepared for traitors to the king, and although the love story is less successful, the story deserves attention on account of the novelty of its scene. Bobbs, Merrill Co.

Ruskin's "The Crown of Wild Olives" and "Cestus of Aglaia"; Emerson's "Nature," "The Conduct of Life" and other essays; Hazlitt's delightful "Table Talk"; Matthew Arnold's "Poems," including those written between 1840 and 1866 together with "Thyrsis," which was published in 1867; Charlotte M. Yonge's "The Book of Golden Deeds," a volume of perennial inspiration for young readers. ranging, as it does, over nearly three thousand years in its quest for heroic and self-sacrificing acts; Ville-Hardouin's and DeJoinville's "Chronicles of the Crusades"; the fifth and sixth volumes of Richard Hakluyt's quaint and stirring history of "The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation"