tect here and there through his very valuable pages something unpleasantly like a sneer. "Where the modern calmly taps his forehead," explains Mr. Fiske, "and says, 'Arrested development!' the terrified ancient made the sign of the cross, and cried, 'Were-wolf!'"[1] Now a more disagreeable object than the "modern" tapping his forehead, like Dr. Blimber, and offering a sensible elucidation of every mystery, it would be hard to find. The ignorant peasant making his sign of the cross is not only more picturesque, but he is more companionable,—in books, at least,—and it is of far greater interest to try to realize how he felt when the specimen of "arrested development" stole past him in the shadow of the woods. There is, after all, a mysterious horror about the lame boy,—some impish changeling of evil parentage, foisted on hell, perhaps, as Nadir thrust his earth-born baby into heaven,—who every Midsummer Night and every Christmas Eve summoned the werewolves to their secret meeting, whence they rushed ravenously over the German forests. The girdle of human skin, three finger-breadths
