Chapter 4

I rather think that the lady who elects to write under the name of O. DOUGLAS did less than justice to the peculiar quality of her own gifts in calling her last story _Penny Plain_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON). Because really such confectionery as this, covered inches deep with the sweetest and smoothest and pinkest of sugar, could never in these days be bought for many pennies, while as for "plain"...! Most of the plot (which really isn't at all the right word for such caramel-stuff) takes place in a small Scottish town, where lives a family of book-children, mothered by an elder sister named _Jean_, all of them rich in char-r-rm but poor in cash. To this town comes, first, a pleasant single lady with a lord for her brother; secondly an aged man full of money; and, because the family (and the tale) is what it is, _Jean_, in fewer chapters than you would easily credit, has clasped the young lord to her breast and is saying the correct things to the family lawyer of the aged man concerning the responsibilities of being his heiress. So there you have it. I doubt whether anything even temporarily unpleasant so much as suggests itself; for "O. DOUGLAS" has apparently discovered that, in a world still struggling with stale peace-bread, her pink sugar-cakes are not only cheerful to cook but likely to prove highly remunerative.

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Illustration: TACT IN TIME.

_King Alfred_ (_to shopman_). "AH! I SEE YOU STOCK MY PATENT CANDLE-CLOCKS. HOW ARE THEY SELLING?"

_Shopman._ "THEY'RE SELLING LIKE HOT----I MEAN THERE'S QUITE A RUN ON THEM, YOUR MAJESTY."

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A Confession.

"The ---- Manufacturing Co. (The Profiteering Stranglers)." _Advt. in Provincial Paper._

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"Wanted, 1,000 pairs running shoes for local expeditionary force about to be organised."--_North China Daily News._

The wise commander always prepares for a retreat.

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The limits of age for entrance to the [Royal Air Force] college will be from 157-1/2 to 1 years."--_Daily Paper._

"Percy ---- has recently joined the R. A. F. He is only 199 years of age."--_Local Paper._

We are sorry for PERCY, who will probably get the "push" as soon as the authorities find out that he has exceeded their very liberal age-limit.

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