d recognises Sir MARTIN CONWAY as a paramount peak-compeller
and explorer of resource, while superior persons, like this learned
clerk, know him as an effective _dilettante_ in the realms of art. In
_The Sport of Collecting_ (FISHER UNWIN), with a general candour, but a
specific, canny (and of course rather tiresome and disappointing)
reticence as to prices, he gives us, in effect, a treatise on the craft
of curio-hunting, gaily illustrated by anecdotes of the bagging of
bronze cats in Egypt, Foppas and Giorgiones in Italian byways, Inca
jewellery in Peru, and heaven knows what and where beside. The authentic
method, apparently, is to mark down your quarry as you enter the
dealer's stockade, to pay no visible attention to it but bargain
furiously over some pretentious treasure which you don't in the least
want; later, admitting with regret your inability to afford the price,
to suggest that as a memento of your pleasant visit you might be
disposed to carry off that odd trifle in the corner over there; then,
bursting with hardly controlled excitement to see your priceless
primitive wrapped in brown paper and thrown into your cab, to drive to
your quarters, hug yourself ecstatically and boast to your friends and
fellow-conspirators about it. Shooting the driven tiger from the howdah
is quite evidently nothing to this royal sport of dealer-spoofing,
especially when the dealer knows a thing or two, as Sir MARTIN bravely
confesses he sometimes does. I wonder if this arch-collector, when he
discovered his best piece, Allington Castle (of which he discourses with
such pleasant and knowledgable enthusiasm), turned a contemptuous back
on the battlements and made a casual offer for the moat. A most
diverting book.

* * * * *

The name of MADAME YOI PAWLOWSKA is new to me; but if her previous books
were anything like so good as _A Child Went Forth_ (DUCKWORTH) I am
heartily sorry to have missed them. There have been many books written
about childhood, and the end of them is not yet in sight; but I have
known none that so successfully attains the simplicity that should
belong to the subject. You probably identify the title as a quotation
from WALT WHITMAN, about the child that went forth every day, "and the
first object that he looked upon, that object he became." The child in
the present instance was one _Anna_, who went forth in the Hungarian
village where she was born, and saw and became a number