f links, where eighteen holes have been compressed into the usual space
of one and the winner stands to lose drinks. There are also some parodies
of ROBERT BURNS, some jokes about bathing-machines and some digs at the
Kirk. One has been, of course, before to seaside places that were a bit too
bracing, and I am afraid that the air of Bunkie leaves me cold.

* * * * *

I really think that _The World of Wonderful Reality_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON)
may come to be something of a test for your true follower of Mr. E. TEMPLE
THURSTON. You recall the ingredients that went towards the first, or
_Beautiful Nonsense_, book? Sentiment in the slums, Venice with a very big
V and poverty _passim_ might be regarded as its composition. Well, here you
have _John_ and _Jill_ home again; no more Venice, a palpably decreasing
sentiment and only poverty to fill up with. I am bound to confess that I
found _John's_ protracted preparation for his nuptials rather less than
enough as subject-matter for a whole book. Of course all this time there
remained _Amber_ (you recollect her; she "also ran" for the _John_ stakes),
and at the back of your mind a comfortable conviction that two strings are
still better than one. Having censured the book for insufficient plot, I
had better not proceed to give away what there is. I will content myself
with a personal doubt as to whether _John_ and _Jill_ will quite
reduplicate their former triumph--and that for various reasons, not least
because (for purposes of sequel, I suppose) even _Jill_ herself has been
permitted so grave a lapse from the attitude of stand-anything-so-long-as-
it's-slummy-enough that so endeared her to her former public. Touch that
and the bloom is indeed gone.

* * * * *

_With the Chinks_ (LANE), a volume of the "Active Service Series," treats
of the training of Chinese coolies for work with the Labour Corps in the
B.E.F. The special interest of the racial type was, for me, exhausted by
the charming photographs; the task remaining for Mr. DARYL KLEIN,
Lieutenant in the Chinese Labour Corps, of so conveying the atmosphere as
to absorb the reader's attention, was not achieved. On the two main aspects
of the topic, the origin in China and the result in France, he makes no
serious attempt. I got no clear impression of the coolie at home or of why
he took to being an ally, and I was left with but the vaguest conception of
the unit