one of the
stories plunges considerably beyond the limit of discretion and even
good taste. But the heat and the colour, the thrills and the devastating
_ennui_ of life for the English in the island, are as well rendered as
anything I remember in the fiction of Empire. For this alone there
should be a warm welcome for the collection, with all its faults, both
from those who know the original and those who need help in imagining
it.

* * * * *

_The Purple Frogs_ (HEATH, CRANTON AND OUSELEY) I can only describe as
the most exasperating, not to say maddening, product of modern fiction.
What on earth Messrs. H. W. WESTBROOK and LAWRENCE GROSSMITH, the joint
authors, mean by it I have not the ghost of an idea. Occasionally signs
are detectable that the whole thing is a practical joke; still more
occasionally it even promises to become mildly amusing; and then again
one is confronted with an incident (such as the visit of the armed
maniac to the house of _Isambard Flanders_) serious to the point of
melodrama. Not for pages and chapters did I discover any excuse for the
title; and even then not much. But it appeared eventually that _Isambard
Flanders_ was jealous of the friendship between his wife, _Cicely_, and
_Stephen_, a young man who produced film-dramas; and that in order to
score off them he wrote a novel called _The Purple Frogs_, in which he
embodied his suspicions. The last half of the volume is occupied with
this tale within a tale. Here possibly we have a key to the purpose of
the collaboration. Anyhow, I permitted myself to form a theory that Mr.
WESTBROOK (or Mr. GROSSMITH) had written a novel too exiguous for
separate publication, and in this dilemma had appealed to Mr. GROSSMITH
(or Mr. WESTBROOK) to provide a setting. But which wrote which, and
why--these are problems that remain inscrutable. Yet another is
furnished by the fact that Miss ELLA KING HALL has composed for the main
story six "illustrations in music," duly reproduced. You may with luck
be able to smile a little at the quaintness of these. But on the
title-page they are said to be "arranged from the MS. notes of _Botolf
Glenfield."_ And _Glenfield_, being only a character in the novel
written by _Flanders_, couldn't possibly ... Help!

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE CUBIST PHOTOGRAPHER.]

* * * * *

SERENITY.

A singular accident happened to-day,
Distressing to wit