ove into
which he has fallen. It is not a wholesome groove, and even if it were
I should not wish an author of his capacity to remain a perpetual
tenant of it. In _Colour Blind_ (GRANT RICHARDS) we are given the
promiscuous amours of a schoolmaster, a subject which has apparently a
peculiar attraction for Mr. MAIS. _Jimmy Penruddocke_, who tells the
story, left the Army and could not find a job until he was offered a
mastership at a public school. The school rather than _Jimmy_ has
my sympathies. There was nothing peculiarly alluring about this
philanderer to account for the devastating magnetism which he exerted
upon the female heart. To describe all this orgy of caresses could
hardly have been worth anyone's time and trouble; certainly it was
not worth Mr. MAIS'S. I say this with all the more assurance because,
greatly as I dislike the main theme of this novel, there are many good
things in it. There is, for example, _Mark Champernowne_ (_Jimmy's_
friend), a finely and consistently drawn character, and there are
descriptive passages which are vividly beautiful and also some
delightful gleams of humour. I think that when Mr. MAIS'S sense of
humour has developed further he will agree with me that a man who
loved as promiscuously as _Jimmy_ and then wrote over three hundred
pages about it could, without much straining of the truth, be called a
cad.

* * * * *

For many reasons I could wish that England were China. It would be
nice, for instance, to address the HOME SECRETARY as "Redoubtable
Hunter of Criminals" and to call the Board of Exterior Affairs (if we
had one) "Wai-wo-poo." I should like my house also to be named "The
Palace of the Hundred Flowers." I think there are about a hundred,
though I have not counted them. But in China it is above all things
necessary to be an ancestor, and this may lead to complications if Mr.
G. S. DE MORANT, who appears to be much more at home with the French
and the Oriental idiom than the English, is to be trusted. _In the
Claws of the Dragon_ (ALLEN AND UNWIN) describes the experiences of a
young lady named _Monique_, who married the Secretary to the Chinese
Embassy in Paris and was obliged, after visiting her relations-in-law,
to reconcile herself to the introduction of a second wife into the
family, in order that their notions of propriety might be respected
and an heir born to the line. When she had consented she returned to
Paris and wrote the