A GENTLEMAN WITH AN ASHCAN

Add to famous literary hoaxes the case of "The Whispering Gallery". Add to the list of apologizing publishers the so-date John Lane and Company. It has been a busy week-end with the famous London house. Its latest offering, a chatty biting, indiscreet book called, with due propriety, "The Whispering Gallery" was hailed as the seasons hit in England. Everyone who mattered was reading it because it contained delightfully brutal comments on everyone else who mattered. The throbbing question then arose--who wrote it? John Lane and Company announced that only one person knew--the director of the firm, and that he was, of course, bound to secrecy. He would say--in fact he did say--that the writer's name was "a household word among European diplomats". This proclamation, made on Friday, was almost as interesting as the book itself.

Over the week end, however, something "unforeseen" occurred, for in Monday's papers the John Lane officials begged the public's pardon: they were sorry but, entirely innocent themselves, they had fathered the hoax. The book was quite spurious, and was written by one who was ignorant of those about whom he gossiped and lacked the background necessary to such in time chatter. Would everyone who had bought the book please return it to the publishers and get their refund? If the purchasers would be so obliging all would again be serene, feelings would be soothed, and the whole matter might be regarded as a bad dream.

The number of books returned will supply amusing evidence as to the power of anonymity. If "Whispering Gallerys" come back in large quantities one may assume that the public is interested only in that slander which has claim to authenticity. On the other hand if the returns are small the indication will be that human nature considers a whispering gallery to be an instructive body even though, its members be blind, deaf, and as far as real facts are concerned--dumb.