Some Novels in Brief KATHARINE SUSANNA PRITCHARD gives us a
novel of the Australian bush in Working Bullocks (Jonathan Cape, 7s. 6d. net), in which the hard conditions of the life of the lumber man are realistically depicted. The charm of the free, wil.d life is in this- book: but: to the ordinary `English reader, it wilseemthat a real vocation of the same quality as a religious vocation would be necessary to make the life a success. $ * * In most striking contrast to the above picture of rather crude conditions is Mr. Anthony Wharton's novel of the Second Empire, entitled The Two of Diamonds (Collins. 17s. 6d. net). Here we have a description of the apotheosis of sophistication, and the book is exceedingly interesting to the amateur of French annals of that period. The plot is sometimes a little difficult to follow. * * * Miss Tynan tells us in The Infatuation of Peter (Coffins, 7s. 6d. net) of the wiles of a French siren practised on young Englishmen who come to learn French in a watering-place of the type which is so ably described in that admirable little book, Les Petits Twos Pas Chers. Needless to say, Miss Tynan ends this book happily. * * * Readers who like Mr. Eden Phillpotts' speciality of stories of the West Country will be charmed by Cornish Droll (Hutchinson, 7s. 6d. net), in which an old countryman relates the events of his life. In spite of Mr. phillpotts' dialect, it is difficult to believe that the old gentleman would really have been able to present his story in so literary a form.
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