Chapter 4

If you would like to see a white lady ride on a white horse to Banbury Cross and elsewhere with a body-guard of men in tin hats, carrying _The Banner_ (COLLINS) and proclaiming the League of Youth (against war and other evils) and forcible retirement from all offices of profit or power under the Crown at the age of forty, get Mr. HUGH F. SPENDER'S new and, as it seems to me, rather ingenuous novel. Love is not neglected, for a peer's son, deaf and dumb through shell-shock, so responds to the counter-irritant of seeing this modern JOAN riding through Piccadilly that he recovers both speech and hearing and promptly uses them to put her a leading question and understand her version of "But this is so sudden. However----" There is a people's army; a rose-water revolution with the King accepting it as all in the day's dull work; a fight or rather an arming of a few last-ditchers of the old order, and much else that is not likely to happen outside Ruritania. Also candid expression of the opinions of (I take it) the "Wee Frees" concerning _Glamorgan Jones_.

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If Mr. ALAN GRAHAM does not unsettle my conviction that it is easier to begin a story of hidden treasure than it is to finish it, I can nevertheless promise you a good day with the sleuth-hounds, should you decide to _Follow the Little Pictures_ (BLACKWOOD). For some not too lucid reason I went to the meet with a fear in my heart that the command in the title referred to the "movies," and my relief was great on discovering that it was taken from a cipher containing the key to the treasure. The scene of this hunt is laid in Scotland, and the most notable figure among its followers is a certain _Laird Tanish_. The pecuniary fortunes of the _Tanish_ clan were at a low ebb, and in his determination to improve them by winning the prize the _Laird_ broke all the rules of the game and gave way to terrific outbursts of rage in the manner of those explosive gentlemen with whom Miss ETHEL DELL has familiarised us. There is both ingenuity and originality in this story, and I should be doing the author and his readers a great disservice if I disclosed the details of the plot. Anyone with a bent for treasure-hunting will be missing a fine opportunity if he refuses to have a day (or a night) with Mr. GRAHAM'S hounds.

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A Sympathetic Auditor.

"Dr. R. C. Ghostley, of Edmonton, was in the city last week and attended Sir Oliver Lodge's lecture."--_Canadian Paper._

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"W. W. ----, the Rugby International forward, won his third success in four days at Chesham Oddfellows' and Foresters' sports yesterday, when he took first prize in the 10 yards open event, with 7-1/2 yards start, in 9-2/5 sec."--_Daily Paper._

His strong point, we gather, is not speed but staying-power.

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_À propos_ of the DE KEYSER case:--

"Unfortunately, the Dora regulations against free speech and printing were never taken before the High Court, and our ancestors will wonder at our timidity."--_Daily Herald._

We understand that Sir A. CONAN DOYLE has already received several urgent messages on the subject.

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Transcriber's Note:

p. 438: Removed extraneous "'s" from "GASTON'S" ... [M. GASTON LEROUX'S]

p. 440: Changed "9 2-5" to "9-2/5" ... [in 9-2/5 sec."--_Daily Paper_.]