, however, _The Splendid Fairing_ did but confirm
me in a previous impression that these Mary-call-the-cattle-home
localities must remain more convenient to the local colourist than
attractive to the inhabitants.

* * * * *

The publication, as a foreword, of a "Glossary of Native Words" used
in the text made me wonder whether I should be bored or instructed,
or both, by _The Death Drum_ (HURST AND BLACKETT). Most happily I was
neither. Miss MARGARET PETERSON has built her novel, perhaps a trifle
hastily, about a quite uncommon theme and given it, in Uganda, a quite
uncommon setting. It is the story of a half-caste who marries a white
girl in order to avenge, in her degradation, his sister whom the
English girl's brother had betrayed. I must not say that _Tom Davis_,
the half-caste, is too much a white man--for Miss PETERSON, to do her
justice, has distributed goodness and badness among her blacks and
whites with a quite impartial hand--but he is too fine a fellow to
carry out his own plan, and, before he has done any lasting harm to
the girl he has come to love, he takes himself, by way of a native
rising, to a lotus-covered lake, and so out of her life. It seems a
pity that the happiness of the story's end couldn't include _Tom_, but
his ancestry effectually barred the way, and Miss PETERSON has had to
rely upon a very strong and not quite silent Englishman of the best
type for her satisfactory finish.

* * * * *

Few authors have a shrewder idea than Mr. P. G. WODEHOUSE of what the
British and American public want in the way of humour, and I do not
know anyone more determined to supply their requirements. He would
be a dull fellow indeed who did not appreciate the high spirits and
humorous situations to be found in _A Damsel in Distress_ (JENKINS).
It is no small feat to maintain a riot of irresponsible fun for more
than three hundred pages, but Mr. WODEHOUSE gets going at once, and
keeps up the pace to the end without even a pause to get his
second wind. If some of the characters--a ridiculous peer, his more
ridiculous sister and his most ridiculous butler--are of the "stock"
variety, Mr. WODEHOUSE'S way of treating them is always fresh and
amusing. But in his next frolic I beseech him to give golf and its
tiresome lingo a complete rest.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Customer._ "MAY I LOOK AT THAT TWELVE-GUINEA SUIT IN