Page:The cream of the jest; a comedy of evasions (IA creamofjestcomed00caberich).pdf/91

 but, like all the others, it was exquisitely done, and sold neck and neck with Men Who Loved Alison; so that for a while it looked almost as if the American reading public was coming to condone adroit and careful composition.

But presently the advertising columns of magazines and newspapers were heralding the year's vernal output of enduring masterworks in the field of fiction: and readers were again assured that the great American novel had just been published at last, by any number of persons: and so, the autumnal predecessors of these new chefs d'œuvre passed swiftly into oblivion, via the brief respite of a "popular" edition. And naturally, Kennaston's romance was forgotten, by all save a few pensive people. Some of them had found in this volume food for curious speculation.

That, however, is a matter to be taken up later.