In his new satirical study of certain modern cranks and their unpleasantness Mr. OLIVER ONIONS has, I think, allowed his bitterness to outrun his sense of proportion. _A Crooked Mile_ (METHUEN) is a sequel to his earlier book, _The Two Kisses_. We meet again those two young women, _Dorothy_ and _Amory_, and the natural characteristics that they once presented seem now to be tortured into caricature. _Amory_ has indeed all my sympathy, so badgered is she by Mr. ONIONS, so relentlessly forced into ignominious positions; and I cannot feel, as I should do, that she would have achieved those ignominies without Mr. ONIONS' impelling hand behind her. I have myself considerable sympathy for cranks, and perhaps that is why I regard Mr. ONIONS' satire as a dry, gritty business. His humour is, of course, always a delightful thing, but here I fancy that he has not drawn the true line between comedy and farce, between satire that preserves the probabilities and indiscriminate exaggeration. Of the three Mr. ONIONSES who have at different times given me pleasure--the author of _Widdershins_, the author of _In Accordance with the Evidence_, and the author of _Little Devil Doubt_--I greatly prefer the first. In _A Crooked Mile_ there is one chapter worthy of all three of them--that chapter where _Amory_ discovers that her lover is going away with another woman. That is fine work. For the rest I hope that he will grow tired of his social satire and soon give us again some more of his delicate imagination and fancy. * * * * * What I felt about _The Girl on the Green_ (METHUEN) was that, however charming and capable, she was not quite likely, after but a few short months of golf, to have put up such a good fight in her great match with the crack amateur, _Jim Beverley_, who was giving her a half. I couldn't manage to believe it. However, that was not my business, but MARK ALLERTON'S. According to him, _Frank_ took her match to the last green, in spite of a number of cats, headed by the Vicar's wife, who did their best to put her off her game. Yes, you are right to presume that what began as a single developed into a flirtsome, and that the twain lived happily ever after in a nice little dormy house, and that _Jim_ bested the HILTONS and the OUIMETS, while _Frank_ put permanently out of joint all the noses of all the Misses LEITCH. Those who not only play but talk, dream, read and generally live for golf will, I can say with confidence, be grateful to Mr. MARK ALLERTON for this easy, hopeful narrative. * * * * * [Illustration: _Vendor of studs and buttons_ (_to vendor of inflating baby_). "NOW THEN, _FATHER_, NOT SO MUCH OF IT. GIVE AN OLD BATCHILER A CHARNST, CARN'T YER?"] * * * * * _The Morning Post_ on the Army and Navy Boxing Championships:-- "These men's middles were full of good things." Why don't they train better?