marriage, the negotiations for which,
with the resulting complications, take up so large a space in a
lengthy book. It gives one the impression of being written not
"according to plan" but out of a random fancy, with so hurried a pen
that not merely have irrelevant incidents, absurdities of diction, and
indubitable _longueurs_ escaped excision, but such lapses from the
King's fair English as "save you and I" and "I shoot with my own hand
he who refuses." Even a popular author--indeed, especially a popular
author--owes us more consideration than that.

* * * * *

_The Fortunes of Richard Mahony_ (HEINEMANN) is one of those pleasant
books in which the hero prospers. True, the process as here shown
is very gradual; so much so that the four hundred odd pages of the
present volume only take us as far as "End of Book One." Clearly,
therefore, Mr. H.H. RICHARDSON has more to follow; and, as one should
call no hero fortunate till his author has ceased writing, it is as
yet too early for a final pronouncement upon _Richard Mahony_. My own
honest impression at this stage would be that he is in some danger of
outgrowing his strength. This pathological phrase comes the more aptly
since _Richard's_ fortune, though begun in the goldfields, was not
derived from digging, but from the practice of medicine, and from a
lucky speculation in mining stock (I liked especially the description
of the day when the shares sold at fifty-three, and _Richard_ "went
about feeling a little more than human"). The end of the whole matter,
at least the end for the present, is that, with his wife, and what he
can get together from the remains of the mining _coup_, and the sale
of a somewhat damaged practice, _Richard_ sets forth for England.
Obviously more turns of fortune are in store there for him and _Mary_
and that queer character, his one-time inseparable, _Purdy_. That I
anticipate their future with much interest is a genuine tribute to
the humanity in which Mr. RICHARDSON has clothed his cast. _Richard
Mahony_, in short, is a real man, whose fortunes take a genuine hold
upon one's attention; though I repeat that I could wish his author had
told them less wordily, and--in one glaring instance--with a greater
respect for the decencies of medical reticence.

* * * * *

[Illustration: USING PETROL FOR PLEASURE.

JOY-RIDERS CAUGHT RED-HANDED.]

* * * * *