What is the subject that they are so earnestly discussing?
The Influence of Rabelais on the Monastic System of the Fifteenth Century?
The obscurity of Robert Browning?
Whether or not the art of the novel is a finer art than it was in the days of the Victorians?
Not at all.

The point in dispute is the figure of Delehanty's batting average in 1867.

The vital importance of the matter is the reason of their obvious excitement.
Of more serious aspect is Mr.James Lane Allen, whose tales of the Kentucky Blue Grass Region I hope will be read as they deserve for many generations to come.

Rex Beach swings along musing perhaps on the solitudes of Lake Hopatcong.

Rupert Hughes studies the faces in the Avenue throng with the hope of finding the inspiration for a title for the projected novel that will be more eccentric, if possible, than the title of the last.