Fighting Fearful Odds. By Robert Leighton. (Andrew Melrose. 3s. 6d.)—Such
a story as this is all too rare among books professedly written for boys. Jack Rodney is his own enemy, and the false steps he makes are such as any schoolboy with an inability to say "No" might very well make. Of course, the coincidences are the story-teller's privilege, but they do not detract from the force of the moral, which is to be straightforward at any cost. Jack Rodney begins by betting at school, and his bad fortune follows him hard till he is mixed up in burglary, murder, and theft, and is reduced to selling papers, and even runs a chance of being murdered himself. The incidents of his career follow very naturally, and hold our interest from first to last. We must draw Mr. Leighton's attention to the weak point in the plot,—the extreme improbability of a boy of average intelligence being led to believe that a couple of strolling gipsies are breaking into a house with the object of thwartirg another set of burglars. Also a little more care should have been exercised in delineating the Baronet. He is a very unreal person, not at all on a le7e1 with Mr. Leighton's other characters. But this. is a good story, and the sequence of events is skilfully managed.
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