school which
harboured me must have been a dull place, and that I should now like to
return there for a term at least--I doubt if I should be allowed to stay
longer--and liven things up. Miss POPE starts with one great advantage
over men who write of boys' schools, because the critics cannot say that
her work is autobiographical, and then proceed to "recognise" most of
her characters. That is the terror lurking by day and night for any man
who dares to write a school-tale. On the other hand, although Miss POPE
has fitted herself remarkably well into the skin of _Jack Venables_, who
tells these stories but is not (thank goodness) the hero of most of
them, she has not been able entirely to avoid what I must call Papal
touches. For instance, I do not believe that a boy of _Jack's_ age and
character would use the word "feasible," and a special society would
have to be started for the prevention of cruelty to any boy who ventured
to talk of his "aunties." On the whole, however, she has a fine
understanding of boy-nature, and if there are some improbabilities in
these ingenious stories, she is armed with the crushing retort that the
chief characteristic of any properly equipped boy is his improbability.

* * * * *

Possibly owing to some personal disinclination towards violent bodily
exertion on the part of his creator, _Father Brown_, the criminal
investigator of Mr. G. K. CHESTERTON'S fancy, is not a fellow of
panther-like physique. For him no sudden pouncing on the frayed
carpet-edge, or the broken collar-stud dyed with gore. He carries no
lens and no revolver. Flashes of psychological insight are more to him
than a meticulous examination of the window-sill. When the motive is
instantly transparent, why bother about the murderer's boots? In the
circumstances it is perhaps fortunate for the reverend sleuth that he
nearly always happens to be in either at the death or immediately after
it, instead of being summoned a day or two later when the grotesque
circumstances of the crime have baffled the panting ingenuity of
Scotland Yard. You find him now in this part of England, and now in
that, now in America, and now in Italy. He is, in fact, a hedge-priest
and has not even a cure of souls in Baker Street. But wherever he goes
with his flapping hat and his umbrella he chances on some fantasy of
guilt. Yet any pangs we may feel for the absence of the familiar
setting--the pale-faced butler in the g