not the 'ancient and fish-like smell' with which Teutonic erudition is, by implication, connected in these appellatives, just a case of 'debasing the moral currency' in its depreciation of the minute accuracy and unselfish devotion of German scholarship? Indeed, the names throughout throw much light on the characters of the book. In most cases they represent exactly that particular phase of a character which is brought forward, the limb which is to represent the whole figure. We can all guess beforehand to what sort of characters names like Touchwood, Mordax, and Scintilla will be applied. The more individual the name the more of the uncertainty of real life about the character: that will be found to be a good working test. Thus Pummel, who serves in some inexplicable way as a 'watchdog of knowledge.' stands out well defined. 'What is the cause of the tides, 'Pummel?' 'Well, sir, nobody rightly knows. 'Many gives their opinion, but if I was to give mine, it 'ud be different.' That is a touch worthy of the hand that drew Mrs. Poyser and Dolly Winthrop.
And as the scientific spirit shows itself in these unreal abstractions of truncated characters, so we have it again in the manner of their presentation. The inordinate length of the sentences and the frequent obscurity of
