Mr. BERTRAM SMITH'S _Caravan Days_ (NISBET) has not made me eager to
take to the road at once, the reason is that he seems to delight in
things that I most cordially detest. For instance, he likes cooking and
he is "very fond of rain." With such tastes he has more facilities for
enjoying himself than are offered to most of us, and I find myself
wondering whether life in a caravan, always supposing that he was not
there to do the cooking and admire the rain, would be quite as much fun
as he would have us believe. I am confident that when next he goes upon
his travels the majority of his friends will be anxious to share the
attractions of his _Sieglinda_, that caravan of caravans, but I doubt if
they will be ordering _Sieglindas_ for themselves. Meanwhile, so human
has Mr. BERTRAM SMITH made his _Sieglinda_ that I can well imagine her
sulking in her retirement because she wants to see Argyll, the only
county in Scotland she has not yet sampled.

* * * * *

If you are a musical genius yourself and want to do a young composer a
good turn, I implore you not to get his opera produced under the
pretence that it is yours and wait until it has been received
enthusiastically before you announce whose work it is. For that is what
_Jess Levellier_ did, and "Miss LOUISE MACK" tells us what a deal of
trouble was brought about by this impulsive action. There are several
love stories in _The Music Makers_ (MILLS AND BOON). There is the affair
of _Jess_ and there is the affair of _Jess's_ father; and in regard to
the second of these I would say that I am a little tired of adventurous
women who are first attracted by dollars and then find that they are
head over ears in love with the man himself. But in case you are not
adequately intrigued by either of these romances, I can also tell you
that _Sir William_ (big and burly) and _Trixie Harrison_, though
married, gave considerable cause for anxiety before with "outstretched
hands she went tottering towards him." Even the most jaded novel-readers
will suffer thrills and surprises from _The Music Makers_, and
occasionally, perhaps, they will wonder whether coincidence's long arm
has not been stretched to the point of dislocation. However that may be,
the book is breezy and its author is lavish of her material.
Parsimonious writers would have made half-a-dozen novels out of the
stuff of Mrs. CREED'S book.

* * * * *

Illustrati