Mike. By P. G. Wodehouse. (A. and C. Black. 8s.
6d.)—This "Public School Story" is of excellent quality. Mike Jackson is one of a distinguished family of cricketers, and likely to become the flower of the flock. He goes to his public school somewhat late, and the momentous question is: what will be his position in his first term, the cricket term, as it happens to be? There is the complication of an elder brother whose fortunes also are in the balance. How much comedy, and even tragedy, is developed out of this situation we cannot attempt to say, but that this is a most entertaining tale, and of a high tone as well, there can be no doubt. We are inclined to think that the second part, where Mike, who has been abominably idle at N'irrykyn, is removed to Sedleigh, is inferior to the first. Nevertheless Smith, alias Thanith, is perhaps the most amusing person in a moat amusing • Anita Navigation of To-Day. By Charism C. Turner, London: Seeley and Co. [54. net.] book.—That Boy of Fraser's, by Ernest Protheroe (R.T.S., 3s. 6d.), is another story of school, but on a quite different plane of life. The Fraser boy is a champion swimmer of a Church school, and the beginning of the story is the rivalry with the representative cf the Council school. Fraser's mother is in arrears with her rent, and the ill-conditioned "Ginger" uses this fact to "square" him. Many stirring adventures follow, and we are introduced to many strange places and persons. An unfriendly critic might say that there was much of the melodramatic in the tale, and might be right in so saying. Nevertheless we found it to be full of interest, and altogether an effective piece of work.—We can hardly say quite as much for another effort of the same writer, The Redemption of the Duffer (R. Gulley, 3s. 6d.) There are some good things in it, and the moral is excellent. On the other hand, we do not like the episode, if it may be so called, of Herr Frickter.
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