Shy Wonder

Thus stranded and solitary, the Shop-Talker reaches vaguely into his memory for further solace and at last he finds it in laughter, not too loud for hot weather, and this mirth arises from remembrance of remarks on Doctor Johnson — A Play, seen in the Chicago Daily News. The scholastic ‘colyumist,’ Keith Preston, suggested a screen version of this play. The name of it would be ‘ The Birth of a Dictionary,’of course, and the moving drama would open with a scene in which Boswell surprises Johnson working on the proofs and is informed that his friend is about to become an author. Then the ‘colyumist’ suggests, as a sort of stagedirection: ‘Shy wonder on the part of Boswell.’ The Shop-Talker thanks him for the solace of that phrase.

Mr. Newton did not thank him, however. On the contrary, hearing of this suggestion, he wrote: ‘I hope that my informant is in error, but should I be correctly advised, l would say to you, in Dr. Johnson’s phrase, “Sir, to be facetious, it is not necessary to be indecent."'