the use of his peculiar powers only when the necessity arose. But the
hero of fiction has his duty always to perform, and he may well find
that such transcendental gifts are apt to become a burden. He must for
ever be turning them to account and finding new material to work upon.
That the scope is limited anyone will at once discover who reads _The
Great Miracle_ (STANLEY PAUL). He may never do the same thing twice;
once he has disappeared through a floor at a critical moment, floors are
off. Each feat must be more astounding than the last: when he has worked
his way through a prison wall it would be an anticlimax to do a job with
the wall of a mere dwelling-house, and, of course, he is absolutely
precluded from the common use of doors. I am afraid Mr. T. P. VANEWORD'S
primary conception has been too much for him: he lacks the nice
imagination of a WELLS to carry it off. Also he fails to deal with the
humour of the position, whether in the madhouse, the court of justice,
the manager's office or the palace, an elementary mistake which the most
amateur conjurer will always avoid. It is rather the author's misfortune
than his fault that his incidental picture of war, introduced only as a
new field of operation for his prodigy, is rendered almost fatuous by
the actual conditions at present existing.

* * * * *

Illustration: _Porter._ "DO I KNOW IF THE ROOSHUNS HAS REALLY COME
THROUGH ENGLAND? WELL, SIR, IF THIS DON'T PROVE IT, I DON'T KNOW WHAT
DO. A TRAIN WENT THROUGH HERE FULL, AND WHEN IT COME BACK I KNOWED
THERE'D BIN ROOSHUNS IN IT, 'CAUSE THE CUSHIONS AND FLOORS WAS COVERED
WITH SNOW."

* * * * *

When the father of _Patience Tabernacle_ (MILLS AND BOON) suddenly left
his books at the bank in a state of regrettable inaccuracy and went off
to borrow the wig and other equipment of his elderly maiden sister I
thought I was to have one of those jolly, naive detective stories which
the feminine hand can best weave. But I was deceived, nor do I consider
quite fairly. For how was I to know that such an incident had no
essential relation to any other in this quiet story of the love affairs
of _Patience_ and the wrong boy rejected, and the right man discovered,
in time; that it wasn't even introduced so as to throw light on the
character of any one concerned? Now I would ask Miss SOPHIE COLES what
she would think of me if I began my (projected) Sussex village ep