ge contains something to
startle or amuse. The author's experiences on his first day in London,
including an encounter with a sausage-seller (more friendly than CLEON'S
rival); his negotiations for the purchase of _The Times_, and his offer of
the editorship to Lord CURZON, who unfortunately refused it; the
_provenance_ of "The Pekin Massacre," which originated, it appears, not
with a "stunt" journalist, but with a Chinese statesman wishing to pull the
Occidental leg--these and many other incidents are admirably described by a
writer who, though he long ago doffed his journalistic harness, has not
forgotten how to write up a "good story." Be your opinion of the New
Journalism what it may I guarantee that you will find its champion an
agreeable companion.

* * * * *

There are parts of Mr. W.J. LOCKE'S latest novel, _The House of Baltazar_
(LANE), which will, I fear, make almost prohibitive demands upon the faith
(considered as belief in the incredible) of his vast following. To begin
with, he introduces us to that problematical personage, whose possibility
used to be so much debated, the Man Who Didn't Know There Was A War On.
_John Baltazar_ had preserved this unique ignorance, first by bolting from
a Cambridge professorship through amorous complications, next by living
many years in the Far East, and finally by settling upon a remote moorland
farm (locality unspecified) with a taciturn Chinaman and an Airedale for
his only companions. This and other contributory circumstances, for which I
lack space, just enabled me to admit the situation as possible. Naturally,
therefore, when a befogged Zeppelin laid a couple of bombs plonk into the
homestead, the ex-professor experienced a mental as well as a bodily
shake-up. I had no complaint either with the transformation that developed
_John Baltazar_ from the only outsider to apparently the big boss of the
War; while the scenes between him and the son of whose existence he had
been unaware (a situation not precisely new to fiction) are presented with
a sincere and moving simplicity. So far so good, even if hardly equal to
the author's best. But the catastrophe and the melodramatics about
War-Office secrets, preposterously put on paper, and still more
preposterously preserved, simply knocked the wind of reality out of the
whole affair. A pity, since Mr. LOCKE (though I prefer him in more
fantastic vein) has clearly spent much care upon a tale that