me increasingly apparent. Yet it is
in this vein that he gives us what is by all odds his best bit, "The
Chevalier of Carnaby Row." When he writes of Cupids and fauns and
Columbines and rose-leaves and the sort of young females that find
this environment congenial (in books) I like Mr. CALTHROP least.
Perhaps it is because the publishers have put his picture on the paper
cover. He looks much too stalwart and sophisticated to be toying with
such gossamer fantasies.

* * * * *

[Illustration: LIFE'S LITTLE ANOMALIES.

HOW MANY THOUSANDS OF POUNDS HAVE BEEN OFFERED TO CARPENTER AND
DEMPSEY TO FIGHT, AND NOW HERE IS A KIND OLD LADY GIVING TWO BOYS
SIXPENCE EACH IF THEY'LL PROMISE _NOT_ TO.]

* * * * *

I doubt whether the complications which attend the devolution of dead
men's property were created for the confusion of survivors or for the
convenience of novelists. In the case of _The Lost Mr. Linthwaite_
(HODDER AND STOUGHTON), _Mrs. Byfield_ had married _Mr. Byfield_, or
at least she thought she had, and _Mr. Byfield_ had died, supposedly
intestate. Previously _Mrs. Byfield_ had married _Mr. Melsome_, or
again she thought she had, and _Mr. Melsome_ had disappeared and was
assumed to be dead, leaving nothing behind him except a brother as
vile as himself. The following discoveries were made by her in due
sequence: That _Mr. Melsome_ was not dead and that therefore she was
not _Mrs. Byfield_ but _Mrs. Melsome_; that _Mr. Melsome_ was already
married when he purported to marry her, and that therefore she was not
_Mrs. Melsome_ but _Mrs. Byfield_; and that a solicitor's clerk was
absconding with the bulk of the _Byfield_ estate, which, of course,
was what the bother was all about. Her son, bitten with the craze for
discoveries, then discovered on his own that the late _Mr. Byfield_
hadn't died intestate. I wonder myself if he ever really died at
all.... These are what Mr. J. S. FLETCHER very aptly calls the mere
legalities; the plot, which thickens and thickens from first page to
last, concerns the handling of them by the evil but talented _Melsome_
brothers, the accidental intervention of _Mr. Linthwaite_, and the
rescue work of his admirable nephew, _Mr. Richard Brixey_, of _The
Morning Sentinel_. Mr. FLETCHER tells his story well, but up to the
very last moment I was looking and hoping for a surprise and was
suspecting those legalities of being a deception