* * * *

Before many weeks there came to the London morning papers a telegram
from the principal seaport of Gloria.

'His Excellency President Ericson, ex-Dictator of Gloria, has just
landed with his young wife and his secretary, Mr. Hamilton, and has been
received with acclamation by the populace everywhere. The Reactionary
Government by whom he was exiled have been overthrown by a great rising
of the military and the people. Some of the leaders have escaped across
the frontier into Orizaba, the State to which they had been trying to
hand over the Republic. The Dictator will go on at once to the capital,
and will there reorganise his army, and will promptly move on to the
frontier to drive back the invading force.'

There came, too, a private telegram from Helena to her father, concocted
with a reckless disregard of the cost per word of a submarine message
from South America to London.

'My darling Papa,--It is so glorious to be the wife of a patriot and a
hero, and I am so happy, and I only wish you could be here.'

When Captain Sarrasin gets well enough, he and his wife will go out to
Gloria, and it is understood that at the special request of Hamilton,
and of some one else too, they will take Dolores Paulo out with them.

For which other reason, as for many more, we wish success and freedom,
and stability and progress to the Republic of Gloria, and happiness to
the Dictator, and to all whom he has in charge.

* * * * *

_OPINIONS OF THE PRESS_ ON THE DICTATOR.

'In Mr. McCarthy's novels we are always certain of finding humour,
delicate characterisation, and an interesting story; but they are
chiefly attractive, we think, by the evidence they bear upon every page
of being written by a man who knows the world well, who has received a
large and liberal education in the university of life. In "The Dictator"
Mr. McCarthy is in his happiest vein. The life of London--political,
social, artistic--eddies round us. We assist at its most brilliant
pageants, we hear its superficial, witty, and often empty chatter, we
catch whiffs of some of its finer emotions.... The brilliantly sketched
personalities stand out delicately and incisively individualised. Mr.
McCarthy's light handling of his theme, the alertness and freshness of
his touch, are admirably suited to the picture he paints of contemporary
London life.'--Daily News.

'"The Dictato