o expect. I liked "Cupid Goes Slumming," because it was
almost _Cabbage Patch_; but "Hoodooed," the story of an old negro who
believed himself the victim of a spell which involved the presence of a
cricket in his leg, delighted me even more. His wife removes the charm
with a vacuum cleaner, in which she has previously secreted a cricket,
and the victim recovers. It pleased me very much to learn that among
"white folk's superstitions" is the theory that it is "bad luck to sleep
with the windows shet," and, when I come to think of it, I believe that
it is very bad luck indeed.

* * * * *

I should have liked GABRIELLE VALLINGS' _Tumult_ (HUTCHINSON) a good
deal better if she could have managed it without the aid of a Pan who
wandered, emitting a strong smell, chiefly in the demesne of a very
expensive and over-cultivated French noble. It was his daughter (by an
Australian wife) who was suffering from an inordinate perplexity as to
which half of her blood had the real call. The Australian half suggested
that she should marry a gentleman-rider who won the Grand Prix in a
canter, but fell at the winning-post because his horse shied at the
irrepressible Pan. The French half--and both her parents--urged a
dissolute and anaemic aristocrat--blue blood and a gold lining. Her
grandfather, a strong unsilent sheep-rancher, was against this inept
decadent and converted to his view that saintly worldling, the gorgeous
_Cardinal Camperioni_. A neo-futurist of the most bizarre type prances
through the pages upon his head, causing enough "tumult" to satisfy any
one. So why drag in Pan? Miss VALLINGS can tell a story, cannot keep
down the volume of her puppets' talk, has a sense of movement and
colour, and ought to win for herself a good circulating library
constituency.

* * * * *

For myself I have never yet lived in a sailing barge, and under the
providence of Heaven trust to continue in this immunity. There are
however those who regard the matter differently; and for their benefit I
have no hesitation in recommending most warmly _A Floating Home_ (CHATTO
AND WINDUS), written by CYRIL IONIDES and J.B. ATKINS, and illustrated
partly with photographs, partly with water-colour sketches by that
various craftsman, Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT. Let me say at once that you have
no need to be an amateur bargee, either by practice or desire, to enjoy
this most entertaining volume. Witness