) might have brought off their
_Paul_. As a matter of fact, so I believe could Mr. LOCKE; that is just
the pity of it. I merely record the fact that he has not done so.

* * * * *

There are, of course, short stories and short stories. On a perusal of
those that Mr. RICHARD DEHAN has collected in volume form under the
title of _The Cost of Wings_ (HEINEMANN), I am bound to record my
conviction that most of them are profoundly unworthy of the author of
_The Dop Doctor_. Few of them even aspire to anything beyond "first
serial" quality; and though there is often present a certain easy
flippancy of phrase it impressed me only as the crackling of thorns in a
pot-boiler. Perhaps the best is the first or title tale, which tells of
a young wife goaded to hard words by her constant anxiety for an
aviator-husband. There is some genuine feeling here; but the climax, in
which the pair decide only to fly in company, was dangerously like the
end of a stage duologue. Moreover, so swift now-a-days is the flight of
time--or the time of flight--that aviation stories very soon come to
sound antiquated. Still, after all, there is at least plenty of variety
in this volume, and it will be hard if, in a collection of twenty-six
brief tales, you do not come upon something to your individual taste.
But one word of gentle protest. I fancy the stage has at last agreed
upon a close time for supposed infants, against whose arrival from India
nurses and rocking-horses are engaged, and who turn out on appearance to
be young persons of mature years. Well, I am convinced that it is high
time for a similar prohibition in fiction. Mr. DEHAN at least has proved
himself far too clever for me to tolerate this threadbare theme, not
very illuminatingly treated, from his valuable pen.

* * * * *

_Mr. Anthony Venning_ was a young man of remarkable tact. Taking
advantage of his position as a consultant engineer, at the beginning of
_The Sentence Absolute_ (NISBET), he pocketed an advance commission for
recommending the tender of a certain firm of contractors to the Welsh
mill-owner who was employing his professional services. Whether this
practice is common amongst engineers, as the authoress would seem to
suggest, I cannot say, but at any rate it was hardly to be expected in
the circumstances that _Mr. Venning_ should not fall in love with _Mr.
Powell's_ extremely beautiful daughter, or that the