Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/202



ditto in front of ditto and dittoes. Small child (sex uncertain) with a cheerful fire in nightshirt shouts in front of fireplace and throws up arms. The girls (assuming it to be a boy in the nightshirt) are the more clearly distinguished by the addition in each case of a woman with white apron, mob cap, and outstretched arms, and a kettle on the hob—embellishments denied to the boys, who have to take their chance as best they can with two fenders, a set of fireirons, and a wooden chair between them. The similarity of the two girls' adventures is relieved slightly by the introduction in one case of a cat with stiff legs, galloping, with much prudence, away from the disaster. But there is a complete and irredeemable uniformity about the whole set in one respect—there is no suggested cause for the accidents, unless the boys and girls have deliberately shoved their clothes into the fire, in order to make an instructive warning for grandfather's picture-book. It is noticeable that the artist has had some difficulty in setting fire to the first boy's trousers with a proper and natural effect, owing to the awkwardness of the garments for the purpose. The girls' skirts are infinitely better suited to the experiment. The title to the series of pictures is spread out among them, and ends with the substitution of a significant hieroglyphic for the word "fire," consisting of certain very fierce flames in a setting of very solid smoke, arising from the combustion of nothing whatever.

We have already mentioned the goody-goody books of grandfather's time, with solemn pictures of virtuous elders in high coat collars and swallow-tails, and more or less virtuous youths in concertina hats and puffy white trousers. The adventures of Tommy Merton, Harry Sandford, and the respectable Mr. Barlow in the many editions in which the book was printed, were the occasion of many such pictures, and the first half of this century was greatly distinguished by the immense number of serious little books issued with cuts wherein blameless and omniscient tutors lectured solemn little boys on things in general. Here is a cut from one of these, wherein the worthy tutor, whose