THE MIDNIGHT BELL. By Patrick Hamilton. (Constable. 7s. ad.)—This very
readable novel describes a brief period in the life of a young waiter at a public. house in the Euston Road. " Bob," an ex-sailor, is a youth of mettle and aspiration, who, with eighty pounds to his credit in the bank, reads Gibbon and Washington Irving surreptitiously, and has secret dreams of himself becoming a writer. But the hidden weakness in him is discovered by a young prostitute and thief, who fires his passion, dissipates his fortune, and, with her unfulfilled promises, goads him to de- moralization and despair. Finally, his manhood re-asserts itself, and he takes to the sea again. It speaks much for the delicacy of Mr. Hamilton's art that, dealing with a coarse theme, he is himself never coarse, and for his charm and humour that, while he denies us the dims% to which the story seems from the start to be moving, our interest is sustained till the end. The minor characters and the incidental public- house scenes are so delightfully drawn that we regret their comparative slightness.
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