rges from
a war-hospital badly disfigured and is promptly jilted by his fiancee
and avoided, or so he thinks, by his acquaintances. Disgusted he
buries himself in an old haunted house in the wilds of Ireland and
abandons himself to the practice of magic. The result is highly
successful, for he raises, not a spirit indeed, but something much
more desirable to a lonely young man who has been contemplating
suicide. So much for the romance. The mystery is provided by a
villain, an enterprising young married woman, and the sinister
denizens of a creepy boarding-house. I heartily recommend _Punch_
readers who like a mystery to buy the book and find out what happens.

* * * * *

The publishers of _Sir Limpidus_ (COLLINS) call it, in large print,
a "new and amusing novel," but I am not confident about your
subscription to the latter part of that statement; for Mr. MARMADUKE
PICKTHALL'S irony is either so subtle or so heavy (I cannot be
positive which) that one may well imagine a not too dull-witted reader
going from end to end without discovering the hidden intent. The
subject of the tale, which has no special plot, is a numbskull
landowner, _Sir Limpidus_, son of _Sir Busticus_, lord of Clearfount
Abbey, and type (according to Mr. PICKTHALL) of the landowning class
that he evidently considers ripe for abolition. As propaganda to
that end he conducts his hero through the usual career of the
pre-war aristocrat, sending him to public school and Varsity (those
sufficiently broad targets), giving him a marriage, strictly _de
convenance_, with the daughter of a peer, and finishing him off as a
member of the Government, alarmed at Socialist hecklers and welcoming
the War as likely to give a new direction to forces that threaten to
become too strong for his well-meaning incompetence. "It would rouse
the ancient spirit of the people and dispel their madness.... Even
defeat as a united nation would be better than ignoble peace with the
anarchic mob supreme." Of course this may be highly amusing, but--
The fact is that, with a disappointment the greater from having genial
memories of a former book of his, I have to confess myself one of
the dullards for whom Mr. PICKTHALL'S satirical darts fall apparently
pointless. I am sorry.

* * * * *

I am feeling a little peevish about _Ladies in Waiting_ (HODDER AND
STOUGHTON), because Miss KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN has often charmed me