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found vastly agreeable. Also what seems to me one big defect. But as this latter is so far essential that without it there would be no story I am unable further to tell you about it. Still, I am bound to say that its revelation was a nasty shock to my admiration, which had been roused more than anything else by the sincerity and unconventionality of the argument. This is a matter on which you shall pass your own verdict. Mine would be "A Happy Ending committed through unjustified fear of the libraries"; and in view of the charm of her earlier chapters I should discharge the author with a friendly caution.
Most of us might freely confess to some vagueness in our minds as to "the social and economic state of things in the Prairie Provinces of the Dominion," and not a few of us are ready to spend five shillings and a leisure hour or two in finding out for certain, if only to be prepared with a refuge in the event of England being Teutonised. Miss E. B. Mitchell, the author of In Western Canada Before the War (Murray), knows her subject at first hand and deals with the right matter in the right manner for our purpose; that is to say, she is discriminating in her selection of topics and is always pleasant if never violently exciting or amusing in her treatment of them. The book is short, as such books should be; it does not pretend to be exhaustive, yet it leaves a very clear and precise impression on the mind. But (and every intelligent reader will have been waiting for this "but") why on earth should it be called In Western Canada Before the War, seeing that it was clearly written without any thought of the present European conditions and would have been published just about this time even if we had been at peace with everybody everywhere? The only reference in point which I can recall is a passing wonder expressed in a few lines as to what, if any, effect Armageddon will have in Canada; this is hardly enough, I fancy, to justify the topical suggestion of the cover. I cannot help feeling that the object of the last three words of that title was less literary than commercial.
In the City of Under (Arnold) shows Miss Evelyne Rynd to have quite a pretty talent in the not unattractive genre of fantastic incoherence something after the pattern of The Napoleon of Notting Hill, though in a less robustious mood. But I doubt if talent (however pretty) is altogether sufficient to carry the reader through three hundred pages with no possible clue as to what it is really all about. All the same I do, in justice and most gladly, say that the author keeps one piqued to the extent of wishing to find out; one also loses all suspicion of its being an improving book, and distinctly likes that uncharacteristic Cheltenham boy, Augustus Clickson, who helps little John Hazard to find a job. John was very small and ineffectual and engaging, and his V.C. father had left the family wofully ill off, and John felt it was up to him to do something about it. He meets the Hawker, who has a comforting habit of turning up at odd moments and assuring people that there's a way out of every difficulty, whereas the old lady, Mrs. Letitlie, asserted roundly and frequently that there was none. Then we have a nice wild unpractical Professor and a perplexed archæologist who get tangled in the skein; as also a spy, and, in fact, any old person and thing that occurred to the writer. There's enough good stuff and good humour in this queer patchwork to make me sure that any defect is one merely of form, and I would wager that it was the Notting Hill hero, before alluded to, that was responsible for setting our author on a dangerous path.
The Seventh Post Card (Greening) was one of a series written anonymously, as harbingers of sudden death, to motor-car drivers whose bad luck or bad management had made them run over a fellow-creature with capital consequences. Capital, also, for helping on the plot of the story; for the sudden death really did come off in such a considerable number of cases that we should have been quite justified in feeling worried when the delightful Joanna, driving the car belonging to her equally delightful Jack, was unfortunate enough to knock down a tramp; even though the immediate consequences when Jack found her awakening from unconsciousness by the roadside were—well, delightful too, and such as could be expected. Indeed, the sadly-worn word "delightful" seems somehow applicable to the entire string of clues, deductions, inquests, murders and other horrid thrills, or, at any rate, to Mr. Flowerdew's telling of them. Is my capability for melodramatic emotion declining, that I thread this maze of tragic mystery in a mood no more intense than that of comfortable content? Perhaps; or it may be only the soothing effect of the author's clean English, coupled with the conviction that so long as he takes care to keep Sir Julian Daymont—the famous novelist-detective—on their side, no serious harm can come to the people we care about most. So, although a really nasty charge of murdering his grandfather turns up against the hero just when things (but for the number of pages left) are beginning to look prosperous, I can defy you to get seriously uneasy about his future; and, sure enough, Sir Conan—I mean Sir Julian—solves the problem in convenient time to pack the lovers safely off on their honeymoon. And, really, what more could you ask for?
Voice on telephone (from Berlin). "Well, have you dammed the Suez Canal yet?"
Turk. "Yes—often!"