undercurrent of forefinger." Sergeant Cuff, of The Moonstone of Wilkie Collins, is "a grizzled, elderly man, so miserably lean that he looked as if he had not got an ounce of flesh on his bones. He was dressed in a decent black with a white cravat. His face was sharp as a hatchet, and the skin of it yellow and dry like a withered autumn leaf. His eyes, of a steely, light gray, had a very disconcerting trick, when they encountered your eyes, of looking as if they expected something more from you than you were aware of yourself. His walk was soft, his voice was melancholy, his long, lanky fingers were hooked like claws. He might have been a parson, or an undertaker, or anything else you like, except what he really was." Then as to Cuff's methods: He is introduced to the reader with the usual air of mystery. He makes no allusion whatever to the business he had been hurriedly summoned to investigate, but "he admired the grounds, and remarked that he felt the sea air very brisk and refreshing." To the gardener's astonishment Cuff proved to be quite a mine of learning on the trumpery subject of rose gardens. As in the case of Bucket, the effective armor of Cuff is flattery. "You have got a head on your shoulders and you understand what I mean," is his typical style of address. It is unnecessary to remind the reader that the detective of the novelist cannot be foiled or turned aside by false scents from the unerring pursuit of his lawful prey. If by _malice prepense_ Javert or Cuff is temporarily beguiled, it is simply for the purpose of showing that the writer himself is in reality a very much more ingenious person than even the subtle detective he depicts for the delectation of his readers. These tricks resemble those feints of failure common to professional gymnasts and trapezists, purposely perpetrated with the object of magnifying in the mind of the excited spectator the difficulty or danger of the performance. In our American literature the most popular detective stories are not composed of the imaginary performances of fictitious characters. We have made a great advance on that unsatisfactory and _effete_ style. To satisfy the exacting palate of our reading people, we require a real flesh-and-blood detective, with a popular name and reputation, to pose as the figurehead, while an ingenious scribbler does the romancing. There is something thrilling and realistic in this method, and it carries an air of veracity which is irresistibly attractive and convincing. The French people did something of the same kind for Vidocq and Lecocq; but, as in most everything else, there is a pervading breeziness and expansiveness of horizon about the American product that is totally lacking in the _blazé_, frouzy, over-geometrical, Gallic detective romance.