recognise in his captive the particular object of
his affections? or that, having abducted the girl according to
instructions received, he should presently be offered untold gold by her
distracted parent for her discovery and return. A faintly embarrassing
situation this, even for an ancestor of the elusive _Pimpernel_. How he
manages to turn it all to favour and romance you must allow Baroness
ORCZY to tell you herself. Incidentally, the appearance of the book at
this particular moment, and in spite (so the publishers inform me on a
slip) of the author's first resolve to postpone it, proves her to
possess something of the sporting spirit of her creation. Hero's luck to
them both!

* * *

A novelist creating a novelist-hero is on dangerous ground. If he be a
little less than perfectly sincere he runs risk of being pretentious,
fatuous even. But sincerity is just Mr. CHARLES MARRIOTT'S conspicuous
quality, and here in _The Unpetitioned Heavens_ (HUTCHINSON) it commands
a dexterous and fastidious workmanship. You'll find, if you read a scene
over again, that there's more, not less, in it than you thought. Mr.
MARRIOTT makes his characters alive by realisation of their subtleties
rather than of their obviousnesses, and that's a feat to which I doff my
beaver. The main theme, sensitively felt and developed, is a delicate
one--the love of a middle-aged woman for a man who is rapt in worship at
a distance of a younger woman, the other's friend. The manoeuvring of
the elder, which might easily have been vulgarised on the one hand or
devitalised on the other, just remains refreshingly and believably
human. Mr. MARRIOTT'S story is not a yarn, but a brocade of intricate
design and exquisite colouring. Let justice be done and _The
Unpetitioned Heavens_ fall to a wide circle of perceptive readers.

* * * * *

Illustration: _Amateur Constable_ (_Policeman's son_). "I ARREST YER ON
SUSPICION O' STEALIN' A RESERVOIR. ANY 'OLLERIN' 'LL BE TOOK DAHN AGIN
YER."

* * * * *

THE PATRIOT.

"At Monday's meeting, Mr. H. H. Gibbs, J. P., the Chairman,
expressed the opinion that the town should not be so conspicuous at
night, as in the event of a Zeppelin raid Bognor might be mistaken
for Portsmouth."--_Southern Weekly News._

It would be small consolation to England, if Bognor Cinema Palace fell,
that Portsmouth Dockyard had been saved.

*