* * * * *

In the early chapters of Mr. WILLIAM HEWLETT’S new story, The Plot-Maker (DUCKWORTH), we are introduced to a popular and highly successful novelist, named Coulthard Henderson, in the emotional crisis produced by a sudden doubt as to whether his output of best-sellers represented anything in the least approaching actuality.  You will admit a tragic situation.  He meets it by the determination that his next book shall be a veritable slice of life, and to this end he selects and finances an eligible young man for the purpose of vicariously experiencing those emotions, from which age and other causes debar the chronicler; in other words, he hires a hero.  The worst of this excellent idea is that it can hardly be said to originate either with Mr. Henderson or Mr. HEWLETT, that credit belonging (I fancy) to the late HERBERT FLOWERDEW in a too-little-appreciated masterpiece of sensational burlesque called The Realist.  However, The Plot-Maker, once set going, develops admirably enough on lines entirely its own.  The so-much-an-hour hero turns out an engaging young gentleman, but a wofully poor protagonist.  The situation where (in the midst of whirling events) he makes the startling discovery that he himself has been in some way switched on to the part of villain is one that you can appreciate only at first hand.  Certainly if you want (as who does not in these days?) an anaesthetic of agreeable nonsense The Plot-Maker is a medium that I can cordially recommend:  one obvious advantage being that you need not try to believe a single word of it.

* * * * *

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF.

From a publisher’s list:—­

    “Shells as evidence of the Migrations of Early Culture.”

And modern Kultur spreads itself in just the same old way.

* * * * *

    “Lady Required to Share Rome with another.”

    Staffordshire Sentinel.

But what about the King of ITALY, not to mention the POPE?

[Illustration:  Eastern Potentate (rusticating).  “YOU HAVE NO IDEA, MY DEAR FRIEND, HOW SOOTHING IT IS TO ME TO GET AWAY FROM THE LUXURIOUS AND ARTIFICIAL LIFE OF THE COURT AND TO SPEND MY WEEK-ENDS IN QUIET RETIREMENT HERE IN THE COUNTRY WHERE A FRIEND MAY DROP IN FOR POT LUCK AND TAKE US IN THE ROUGH.”]