... //Jj=r Produced June 26, 1924 By JINGLE WOMEN are Cats. I hasten to protest that this is not my own statement, and I do not necessarily subscribe to it. It is M. André Chaumont, the hero of this play, who comes to that disastrous conclusion, arguing rather dangerously from the particular to the general. Besides, as every body knows, cats have kittens, and it would appear that nowadays ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC II STORM, AT THE AMBASSADORS THEATRE. ANOTHER title is wanted for Storm, the name of which play gives the average playgoer the impression that it is a drama of the Typhoon or Havoc type, and is con sequently something to be avoided. For the average playgoer is fond of laughing, and will be so while England is England still. It is the gayer spirits who show enterprise ...

... *5The Literary Lounger. By Keble Howard.^ 4f'- The Length of Novels. I have made a discovery with regard to the length of modern novels which will probably-- or shall we be modest and say possibly?-- make even greater fortunes for our authors and publishers, and prove an inestimable boon to the reading public. My discovery is this. Whilst analytical or psychological novels the kind of novel ...

... . . By A. E. Wyke Smith. (Hodder and Stoughton ;s. bd.) There are few more delightful writers of cultivated extravaganza than Mr. Wyke Smith. His Some Pirates and Marma- duke and Captain Quality remain bright and shining spots in the reviewer's drab days, and now here is another jolly yarn, quite different in setting, but the same in its power to amuse. James Howarth had no end of a time ...

... . By Edward Gellibrand. (Long 7s. 6d.) The police versus the amateur detective yet once more. When John Kurton, financier, was found shot, the police said it was suicide. But his old friend, Kenneth O'Brien, home from foreign parts in the nick of time, took a different view, and having propounded a mystery, set about unravelling it. He in terests others in his theory of murder, and gets them ...

... . . By Madeleine Linford. (Parsons 7s. 6d.) (Parsons 7s. 6d.) Miss Linford takes her title from a phrase of Stevenson's, where he speaks about the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire. Sylvia Spring told Audrey Deane, the heroine, that the job they were both engaged on at the moment, the Help to Poland Mission, was like that. Life is really a road that goes on, and we have stopped ...

... The Literary Lounger. By Keble Howard f The Boy in the Bush. Mr. D. H. Lawrence has taken unto himself a col laborator, one M. L. Skin ner. I do not know, of course, who M. L. Skinner may be. There are in existence, so far as my knowledge goes, no previous works of M. L. Skinner. It may be a gentle man or it may be a lady. I rather suspect it 01 being a lady, and you will perhaps come to the ...

... A LITERARY LETTER A Forged Bronte Letter. London, September 1, 1924. For a period within my memory there was a passion for whitewashing historical charac ters who had been reprobated in the past. An interesting ex ample of this was Mr. B. W. Hen derson's Life of Nero, another the late Mr. Harry Irving's Life of Judge Jeffreys. A third which immensely interested me when it appeared through Mr. ...

... THE FIRST LEAVES OF AUTUMN Two Breath-catching Novels for Autumn Evenings The Man in the Brown Suit. The Man hi the Brown Suit. By Agatha Christie. (John Lane. 7s. 6d.) Christie. (John Lane. 7s. 6d.) The Treasure of the Bucoleon. The Treasure of the Bucoleon. By A. D. U/-tifdon llranfonnc 7 nrl 1 Howden Smith. (Brentanos. 7s. 6d.) The summer that has not been a summer is passing, and already ...

... . By Edmund Downey. (The Bodley Head 6s.) Tom Morrissey is a character worth meet ing. He is an odd fellow who lives in an Irish seaside town, Rockhaven. Mr. Downey has persuaded him to talk, and to some purpose. Tom is full of yarns about the people he knows, and he tells his stories in an odd sideways, rambling fashion that is very attractive. In fact, the telling is some times more than the ...

... . rHE ODD MAN OUT. By Madge S. Thompson. (Ouselev ss.) Thompson. (Ouseley 5s.) Ralph Lorrimer was odd man out in a triangle consisting of Nell Harcourt, Dick Bathurst, and himself. There 's a love in terest, and a villain, Captain Marchmont, who has stepped out of old-fashioned melo drama. To this add an intemperate lady, who is the vicar's wife, no less, and there is a play fitted. Not a very ...

... . By Arthur J. Rees. (John Lane; 7s. 6d.) A weird story of which the scene is laid in the neighbourhood of Chanctonbury Ring. Queer things happen at Mouldering House, with which the House of Hilmerceux and its mistress, Lady Hilmerceux, are insep arably linked. Mystery thickens about Harry Vivian, returned from foreign travel, and Ailsa Rose, who enter the Hilmerceux circle. The time is the ...