iver_ (LANE.)
A man with so many bull's-eyes to his credit may be forgiven an
occasional miss; and, to be candid, _Bildad the Quill-Driver_ seems to
me to come nowhere near the target. Most of Mr. CAINE'S work would be
the better for a certain amount of condensation, but this is the only
occasion on which he has really lost control of his pen. He has had the
unfortunate idea of writing a comic _Arabian Nights_ in close imitation
of the style of the original translation, even to the insertion of short
poems at every possible opportunity. Now, this is one of those ideas
which at first blush would seem to contain all the elements of
delightful humour; but it has the deadly flaw that it involves a
monotony which becomes after a few pages more than irritating. For a
while the novelty is entertaining, and then the reader becomes crushed
by the realisation that he has got to rely for his amusement on the same
sort of joke repeated over and over again for more than three hundred
pages. And, once that happens, the doom of the book is sealed, for the
adventures of _Bildad_ are not in themselves diverting--his love-affair
with the giantess is as unfunny a thing as ever I yawned over--and if
you cease to chuckle at the burlesque pomposity of the style there is
nothing left. There are some things which do not lend themselves to
sustained parody, and the manner of the _Arabian Nights_ is one of them.
But, as I say, I am not going to allow this book to shake my opinion
that Mr. CAINE is one of our most engaging humorists.

* * * * *

[Illustration: HOW A PRUSSIAN ST. GEORGE WOULD HAVE DONE IT.]

* * * * *

I recommend, absolutely without reserve, a war book entitled _Day by Day
with the Russian Army_ (CONSTABLE). It is written by Professor BERNARD
PARES, the Official British Observer with the Russian Armies in the
Field, and is the real thing. Although incidentally it is to be praised
as a modest and lucid piece of writing, well in keeping with the
character of an author whose habit of viewing an action from the most
dangerous, because the most interesting, point can be discovered only by
reading between the lines, primarily it is to be prescribed as a
sovereign tonic against German-made depression. The writer, after being
present at the conquest of Galicia and the triumphant advance to the top
of the Carpathians, after witnessing much of the historical Russian
retreat