than can be contrived
in the dozen pages of these episodes. But within their limitations
they are all excellent fun, partly concerned with the War (usually
with an Irishman involved), partly recalled from the piping and
whisky-drinking times of peace, at Inishmore and elsewhere. One
can only treat them after the manner of the schoolboy who declined
to distinguish between the Major and Minor Prophets. But I
rather specially enjoyed the title-piece, which tells how the
super-patriotism of an aged volunteer defeated the kindly plans of
those who would have saved him fatigue by assigning to him the role
of casualty in a trench-relief practice. Casualties also figure in
"Getting Even," an improbable but highly entertaining fiction of the
score practised by an ingenious Medical Officer (Irish, I need hardly
say) upon an over-zealous C.O., who, to keep him busy during a field
day, flooded his "clearing station" with all sorts of complicated
imaginary cases, only to find the fictitious victims arranged
comfortably in rows under the shade of the trees to await the Padre
and a burying party, the M.O. reporting that they had all died before
reaching him. It couldn't possibly happen as here told, but that
matters little, since, so far as I am concerned, a "Birmingham" tale
can always well afford to dispense with credibility.

* * * * *

I am distinctly grateful to ROSE MACAULAY for _What Not_ (CONSTABLE).
It brought me the pleasantest end to anything but a perfect English
Spring day. She has wit, not so common a gift that you can afford
just to take it for granted; she knows when to stop, selecting not
exhausting; and she makes her epigrams by the way, as it were,
without exposing the process of manufacture. (Other epigrammatists
please copy.) Miss MACAULAY'S "prophetic comedy" is a joyous rag
of Government office routine, flappery, Pelmania, Tribunals, State
advertising, the Lower Journalism and "What Not." That audacious
eugenist, _Nicky Chester_, first Minister of Brains in the post-war
period of official attempts to raise the nation from C3 to something
nearer A1 on the intellectual plane, happens, because of his family
history, to be uncertified for marriage. He also happens to fall very
desperately in love with his secretary, _Kitty Grammont_, and the
conflict between duty and desire becomes the theme--perhaps just a
little too heavy--of an extravaganza that is happiest in its lighter
and mo