And the death of the Tailless Tyke is positively Homeric. The other dogs, all his ruthless enemies, whisper to each other and silently steal from the room. They know that the hour has struck, and that this will be the last fight. The whole pack set upon him, each one goaded by the remembrance of some murdered relative, or by some humiliating scar. Red Wull asks nothing better than meeting them all; and the unequal combat becomes a frightful carnage. At the very end, as much exhausted by the labour of killing as by his own wounds, the great dog--now red indeed--hears his master's familiar cry, "Wullie, to me!" and with a super-canine effort he raises his dying form from the bottom of the writhing mass, shakes off the surviving foes, and slowly staggers to McAdam's feet. Like Samson, the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life. Mr. Ollivant's next book, _Danny_, also a dog story, was not nearly so effective. The human characters command the most attention, though the old man with the weeping eye becomes a bit wearisome. The passages of pure nature description are often exquisitely written, and prove that at heart the author is a poet. But in the narrative portions there is an unfortunate attempt to conceal the slightness of the story by preciosity and affectation in the style. For the simple truth is that in _Danny_ there is no story worth the telling. We recall distinctly the lovely young wife and her grim ironclad of a husband, but just what happened between the covers of the book escapes us. Although Mr. Ollivant believes in _Danny_, in spite of or because of its lack of popularity, he was so dissatisfied with the American edition that he suppressed it. Such an act is an indication of the high artistic standard that he has set for himself; ambitious as he is, he would rather merit fame than have it.