Mr. Beresford Caldecott’s dismay at the openly expressed admiration and persistent attentions of the Lady Noggs, the Admirable Tinker and Elsie will not excite much sympathy; on the contrary, the emotions of the children will be appreciated and shared by most readers. For “a dapper little man with a very red face and a very shiny top hat” to assume such a sobriquet as “Tiger Jake” is calculated to stir the suspicions even of children; and when such children begin to suspect that they are being imposed upon, the results are likely to be unpleasant for the offender. “The Belted Seas,” by Arthur Colton, Henry Holt & Co., is a story, or, strictly speaking, a series of stories, told in the course of a winter’s afternoon by Captain Buckingham, who, with his audience, was seated “by Pemberton’s Chimney.” “Pemberton’s” was a small hotel near the village of Greenough, somewhere, perhaps anywhere, on the southern coast of Long Island, frequented mostly by sailors, not superannuated exactly, but at least of the age when men who have had an active and adventurous life like to sit around and tell of what they have seen and done, or listen while some one else tells of their experiences. Of course, if a landsman happens along, he hears many strange tales, and, if he is an author, gets “copy.” And on this particular winter afternoon such a landsman was present while Captain Buckingham talked. Hence “The Belted Seas.” The captain, according to his own account, had had some extraordinary adventures, shared by extraordinary companions, Stevey Todd, Sadler and Captain Abe Dalrimple. It seems doubtful, however, if Captain Buckingham would have had such a fund of rich material to draw upon for his yarns if it had not been for Sadler’s genius for creating original situations. The latter’s doings in Portale and Saleratus would make a book of themselves, if they were duly amplified. The “Hotel Helen Mar” was an inspiration, and only goes to show how buoyant and optimistic dispositions may, with a little ingenuity, turn disaster into prosperity. The stories are deliberately told, a little too much so, perhaps, for sustained interest, though it is to be remembered that an old sailor cannot be hurried while he is spinning a yarn. * * * * * Miss Marie Van Vorst, who collaborated with her sister-in-law, Mrs. John Van Vorst, in the authorship of “The Woman Who Toils,” the book which, it will be remembered, provoked President Roosevelt’s famous utterance concerning race suicide, has published, through Dodd, Mead & Co., a novel that ought to make a permanent place for itself, and add much to its author’s fame. If it can be classified at all, it must be said to belong to the industrial type; the scene of its action is laid in the cotton mills of the South, and its special problem is the employment of child labor--though it is not to be understood that it is a problem novel in the strict sense of the term.