And now I am left wondering what _Joan
Allway's_ cross was. Would avoiding the Divorce Court be counted the
roughest path of self-denial in a moral anecdote of to-day?
* * * * *
_Running Wild_ (SIMPKIN) is the expressive title of a collection of
child-memories by the late Mr. BERTRAM SMITH, whom readers of _Punch_ will
remember by the pseudonym "BIS." They can here learn from a sympathetic
little introduction by Mr. WARD MUIR under what conditions of a brave but
losing battle with ill-health this delicate and vivacious work was written.
When I say that these recollections (which I decline to call by any word
implying more artifice) illustrate their author, I give you their measure
for honesty and charm combined. Honesty first of all; Mr. SMITH'S young
barbarians running wild and, one conjectures, rapidly reducing their elders
to a like condition, have the compelling effect of unsentimental truth. Few
clouds of glory, for example, trail about the protagonists of "A Day," a
tribute to the joyous intoxication of a day-long orgie of naughtiness
deliberate and wholly unrepented.
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