While the readers of _Bob_ and of _Danny_ were guessing what kind of a dog the young author would select for his next novel, he surprised us all by writing an uncaninical work. This story, adorned with happy illustrations, and printed in big type, as though for the eyes of children, was called _Red-Coat Captain_, and was enigmatically located in "That Country." Every American publisher to whom the manuscript was offered, rejected it, saying emphatically that it was nonsense; and if there had not been a strain of idealism in the Head of the firm that reconsidered and finally printed it, the book would probably never have felt the press. Mr. Ollivant was sure that the story would appeal at first only to a very few, and he requested the publisher not only to refrain from issuing any advertisement, but to make the entire first edition consist of only three copies--one for the archives of the House, one for the author, and one for a believing friend. The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light; and the shrewd man of business did not take the petition very seriously. The verdict Nonsense has been loudly ratified by many reviewers and readers; to the few it has been wisdom, to the many foolishness. For, as was said years ago of a certain poem, "The capacity to understand such a work must be spiritual." It matters not how clever one may be, how well read, how sensitive to artistic beauties and defects; qualities of a totally different nature must be present, and even then the time and place must be right, if one is to seize the inner meaning of _Red-Coat Captain_. I was about to say, the inner meaning of a story _like_ _Red-Coat Captain_, but I was stopped by the thought that no story like it has ever been published, and perhaps never will be. Both conception and expression are profoundly original, and, in spite of some failure of articulation, the work is strongly marked with genius. It is an allegory based on the eleventh and twelfth commandments, which we have good authority for believing are worth all the ten put together. From one point of view it is a book for children; the mysterious setting of the tale is sure to appeal to certain imaginative boys and girls. But the early chapters, dealing with the pretty courtship and the honeymoon, will be fully appreciated only by those who have some years to their credit or otherwise. There is in this story the ineffable charm and fragrance of purity. It is the lily in its author's garden.