consists in stacks of green-covered volumes, which profess, for a small sum, to supply you with reprints of the most readable works of those distinguished authors whom the leviathan publishers delight to honour. Now it suggested itself to the provident mind of Mrs. Smith (my Mrs. Smith-not Mrs. W. H.) that one of these vegetable-looking products might prove advantageous in the event of any further delay, and, having communicated her proposed investment to me, we proceeded slowly through the crowded platform to the stand. After a short consultation the selection was made, and Mrs. Smith put her hand into her pocket for her purse, when her countenance suddenly changed, and, before I could speak, she cried,

"I've lost my purse!"

This is an unpleasant announcement to make at any time, but when a crowd of persons-all strangers-are standing round the bereaved party, it is anything but calculated to create a lively impression. Accordingly, indignant glances were exchanged, and those in our immediate vicinity began to move away slightly. However, I suggested that it might have been left at home; but this solution was met by the fact that Mrs. Smith had paid for her own and her daughter's tickets at E. I then proposed-though hopelessly, for I felt convinced that it had been abstracted by some skilful conveyancer in the crowd-to search for the missing porte-monnaie on the platform and in the carriage. In both places alike my investigations-as diligent as the condition of the station would permit them to be-were, as I expected, unsuccessful. Not a trace of the "lost one" could I find, and I returned, sorrowing, to my companions. They had recovered their composure (Mrs. Smith having coloured at the time, as though she had just been convicted of larceny, instead of being herself the sufferer), and the purchase had been completed, Miss Smith chancing to have her own purse with her; so I escorted them into the ladies' room, and then strolled out to observe what was going forward, and to have a few minutes' conversation with the station-master on the subject of our loss.

The chief of the staff at K had originally been a London detective, and having received an appointment upon this line, his superior intelligence-being unblemished by want of principle or a too devoted attachment to "half-pints" (which so frequently stand in the way of a man's advancement in this rank of life, where his abilities would otherwise have brought him forward)-had raised him to the important position he now occupied. I had been enabled to do him some slight service, and— courteous and obliging to a degree at all times-he was particularly so to me. There was something wonderfully fascinating about his reminiscences of detective life; and, when leaving the train at K, I have not unfrequently paused at the station to listen to some stirring tale of an ingenious capture by himself or his brother-officers. I found him actively employed as usual, and, as I approached him, he raised his hat, and remarked that it was uncommonly warm. There could be but one opinion on this point, so I endorsed it, and then told him that a friend of mine had been robbed-as we thought-of her purse. The stationmaster had already heard of it, and had made inquiries.

"You are not singular, sir; another loss has since been reported to me, although we do our best to protect the passengers." And he pointed, as

he spoke, to a staring placard which, headed "NOTICE," proceeded to warn passengers to look after their luggage and their pockets on the arrival and departure of trains. "Will you oblige me with the particulars ?"

I related the incident as shortly as I could: "That infernal accident was the cause of it all; for the thief, whoever he is, would never have had the chance otherwise."

"To establish that, sir," he replied, "we must prove that it could not have been done elsewhere than on the platform. Pray may I ask were you alone in the carriage?"

"Alone enough!" I replied, somewhat hastily, for I thought the supposition absurd, "in one of your economical halves. At least," I added, as the vision of the sound sleeper in the white hat rose to my recollection, "there was another man sitting next to Mrs. Smith, but he was asleep the whole time."

The ex-detective had naturally bright eyes, but at that moment they gleamed with such a lustre, and yet with a subdued merry twinkle, that simultaneously the whole truth flashed upon me. My first impression was one of intense disgust at being so effectually done; my second, a burning desire to put our ci-devant friend in the white hat in rapid communication with a metropolitan magistrate.

"We can at least find him," I said, moving off.

"But not the purse. No," returned the station-master, shaking his head, "I take it that he is probably too old a hand not to have disposed of everything but the cash long before this."

He mused for a few seconds.

"There is one chance, slight enough it's true, and yet these old birds sometimes run it too fine. You say, sir, the young lady has her purse

with her ?"

I nodded.

"They will find it necessary to take fresh tickets?"

"I presume so," I replied, "the others having disappeared with the rest of the contents."

"Good. Then, sir," looking at the clock, "as the engine will be here in three minutes, will you be so kind as to see your friends get their tickets, and then take care that the young lady puts them into her purse -and that you resume (if possible) your old places, the ladies simply exchanging seats. If the fish bites, let him gorge the bait well, and then -strike! And mind-I know these fellows-strike sharply. The rest I leave to you. Good morning, sir."

And before I could reply, the ex-detective was off.

I made my way back to the ladies quickly, and found them about proceeding to take their tickets; so we walked at once into the office, Miss Smith having her purse in her hand. "Two return firsts to town" were ordered, received, paid for, and by my advice deposited in the portemonnaie, which I also exhorted the young lady to return to her pocket, and then to keep close to my left hand. As we turned to quit the building, for the moment I fancied I saw the upper portion of a white hatand a white hat of which I knew something-receding from the window into obscurity; but when we emerged upon the platform it was certainly not visible. At the same instant the harsh scream of the approaching engine warned those who had not taken their places that it was high

time to do so, and the consequent crowding, and thronging, and hurrying to and fro of porters, with their "By yer leave, gents" (which is invariably symbolical of their having been within half an inch of crushing your favourite corn with some much-enduring truck), were not calculated to soothe the excited nerves of my companions. However, we were fortunate enough to find our former half still vacant (the carriage being near the head of the train)—and indeed, I believe the inhabitants of the other moiety had never quitted their position, but, from a cursory analysis of some deposits on the floor, which I pronounced to be crumbs, and the somewhat shiny-not to say greasy-appearance of the mouths of several of the party, I hinted a dark suspicion to Mrs. Smith that they had been engaged during our absence in the discussion of ham-sandwiches. However, we got in, and the arrangement suggested by the station-master was easily effected, without raising the suspicions of my friends; and Mrs. Smith had just observed that the sleepy man had changed his position, when the identical individual in question came forth from the station, stretching and yawning, as though his appetite for sleep were still fresh. Scarcely had Miss Smith expressed a wish that he might find a place elsewhere, when the white hat loomed before the door, and, apparently unconscious of our presence, glided in with a ghostlike air, sank down by Miss Smith, and was almost instantaneously buried in slumber. I confess I felt a well-nigh uncontrollable impulse to recommend him to the notice of some of the officials standing about, but the recollection of the station-master's last words, and my own conviction that the proceeding would be useless, restrained me, and the heavy snort of the locomotive announced that we were once more launched on our iron way.

I was so fearful lest anything in my manner should rouse the suspicions of the pretended sleeper, and, by putting him on his guard, spoil the neat contrivance of my ingenious friend, that I had previously resolved, in the event of the man's appearance, to feign sleep myself. This was the more feasible, inasmuch as the ladies appeared to have no disposition now to converse, but were engrossed with their books; and I accordingly leant back in my corner and closed my eyes. In the whole course of my life I do not remember ever to have so utterly despaired of five-and-twenty minutes coming to an end. I have travelled the same ground hundreds of times, and the distance has often appeared long-but now it seemed interminable. Houses, trees, gardens-everything flew by, but time. That alone seemed inexorably to stand still. The excitement grew almost insupportable. I felt that I was glaring between my eyelids upon the man in the white hat until I thought the eyeballs would have burst from their confinement. I could have sworn I saw a hand creeping stealthily down his side, and gliding, serpent-like, among the folds of his victim's dress, and yet, when I glanced at him for a second only, the white hat and all belonging to it were so still and motionless, that I should have fancied we were mistaken, had I not been so firmly persuaded that he was the thief. To make matters worse, the other passengers had ceased to talk. So long as there was a distraction of some kind—no matter what-the suspense was bearable, but now a horrid stillness reigned in the carriage, broken only by the monotonous rattle of the

speeding train. My very breathing began to grow short, and I felt as if I must have implored some one to break the silence, when suddenly I became acutely sensible that the pulsations of the engine were becoming appreciably more irregular, and that the earnestly-expected moment of deliverance was come.

The train ran slowly in alongside the ticket-platform, and the collectors came bustling down to their work. I waited until our window was darkened by an official, and the request of "Tickets, if you please?" had been made, and then woke up. I simply said "Season," without removing my eyes one hair's breadth from those-still closed-of the man in the white hat. Our fellow-passengers were handing their pasteboards across, when Mrs. Smith reminded her daughter that she had charge of the tickets. Miss Smith at once put her hand into her pocket, and I distinctly saw the eyelids under the rim of the white hat quiver! Then I knew the game was up. Before Miss Smith could discover her loss, my vis-à-vis made so skilful and swift a movement with his left hand, that in another instant the porte-monnaie, with its contents, would have been flying over the dingy roofs of the houses beneath us, had I not-mindful of the station-master's warning-pulled up the window sharply, and the plunder fell harmlessly at the collector's feet. It was all scarcely the work of a second.

"I give this man in charge for stealing this lady's purse!"

There was a lively scene. The thief and I will do him the justice of saying that he was a master of his art-looked somewhat disconcerted, and yet he stepped out with a jaunty air on the invitation of the guard, who speedily consigned him as an object of the most anxious solicitude to X 999, by whom an accurate account of his prisoner was shortly afterwards rendered at the proper place and to the proper person. I may add, that he was recognised by some of the passengers as having left their carriage at E-; of course with a view of employing his labour and skill in a more profitable field.

The man in the white hat had committed a fatal error. He had calculated upon the certainty of my taking charge of my companions' tickets after the misfortune that had befallen the others-and so getting off safely and quietly with purse number two. And undoubtedly I should have done so but for the excellent advice of the far-seeing exdetective. Still it was a mistake, and one that I have every reason to believe the unfortunate victim is still expiating in one of her Majesty's houses of correction, where he is generally supposed to perform daily on the crank, with the view of keeping his hand in, but shorn of all the jaunty splendour of his white hat.

VOL. XXXIX.

12

BROWNING'S "MEN AND WOMEN."

THE title of these volumes, "Men and Women," is not much more definitely indicative of their contents than was that of "Bells and Pomegranates" that chokepear to literal quidnuncs. The titles of the poems themselves are sometimes correspondingly vague, in relation to their subjects thus we have "Before," After," ""De Gustibus

:

66

"One Way of Love," "Another Way of Love," "In Three Days,"
"In a Year,"
," "Love in a Life," "Life in a Love," "Any Wife to Any
Husband," and so on. They all are dedicated to Mrs. Browning in a
final "One Word More :"

There they are, my fifty men and women
Naming me the fifty poems finished!
Take them, Love, the book and me together.
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.

There is little observable deviation in them from Mr. Browning's charac-
teristic "points," whether good points or bad; though one may unwill-
ingly fear that of the two classes, postive good and positive bad, it is
rather in the latter than the former that advance from the positive to
the
comparative degree is perceptible. Perhaps closer study, such as this
poet requires as a sine quâ non to appreciation, will discover beauties
that lurk unseen during a too cursory perusal; but the most cursory
perusal can hardly escape a conviction that the poet's penchant for ellip-
tical diction, interjectional dark sayings, multum in parvo (and, some-
times, seemingly minimum in multo) "deliverances," flighty fancies,
unkempt similitudes, quaintest conceits, slipshod familiarities, and gro-
tesque exaggerations, is unhealthily on the increase. Greatly they
wrong him, nevertheless, who proceed, as some do, to confound these
excrescent "accidents" with the "essence" of his poetical genius, and to
judge him by these, with a radical perversion of inductive method, as
though a piled-up sorites of these by-way blemishes were identical with
a logical conclusion that he is no poet at all. How much greater a poet
he might be, would he but anticipate the easy every-day work of fault-
finders, by striking out what they so readily find, and by taking upon
himself before publication the duty they promptly assume after it, of
rooting out the tares from his wheat, it is pardonably provoking to
think. Nobly endowed is Robert Browning with gifts superior not only
in degree but in kind to more than two or three, among contemporary
poets, who are read and applauded to the echo by thousands, where he is
read and musingly beloved by tens. The excellence of his gifts-a rare
union of subjective reflectiveness with objective life and vigour, so that
he can make his persona speak out his thoughts without prejudice to
their own individual being,—a lofty moral earnestness, masked often, and
so unrecognised or repudiated ever by the short-sighted-nay, a per-
vading religious tone, jarred only, not drowned, by mocking-bird discords

* Men and Women. By Robert Browning. Two Vols. London: Chapman and Hall. 1855.