requisite for a critic of our great Philistine literature is an ability to induce within himself such an internal disturbance as resembles a profound murmur of ancestral voices—"

"But, oh, dear me!" says Horvendile, embarrassed by such talk.

"—And to experience a mysterious inflowing," continued the other, "of national experience—"

"The function is of national experience undoubtedly," said Horvendile, "but still—"

"—Whenever he meditates," concluded this lackey bewilderingly, "upon the name of Bradford and six other surnames.[4] At all events, I have turned wearily from your book, you bolshevistic German Jew—"

"But I," says Horvendile feebly, "am not a German Jew."

"Oh, yes, you are, and so is everybody else whose literary likings are not my likings. I repeat, then, that I have turned wearily from your book. Whether or not it treats of eating, its implication is clearly that the Philistia which has developed Bradford and six other appellations perfectly adapted to produce murmurings and inflowings in properly constituted persons,—and which Philistia, as I have elsewhere asserted, is to-day as always a revolting country whenever it condemns,—has had no civilised cultural atmosphere worth mentioning. So your book fails to connect itself vitally with our great tradition as to our literature, and I find nowhere in your book any ascending sun heralded by the lookouts."

"No more do I," said Horvendile; "but I would have imagined you were more interested in lunar phenomena, and even so—"

"Moreover," now declared another mummy (this was a Moor, called P.E.M., or the Peach,[5] who through some oversight had not been embalmed, but only pickled in vinegar, to the detriment of his disposition),—"moreover, I am not at all in sympathy with any protest whatever against the scavenger, for it might be taken as an excuse for what they are pleased to call art."