_The Double House_ (STANLEY PAUL) began attractively with a retired Indian colonel who had a mysterious sorrow and wished to betake himself to some quiet English hamlet "where echoes from his past might never penetrate." Of course this could hardly be called wise of the Colonel; the slightest knowledge of quiet English neighbourhoods in fiction or the drama might have assured him that towards the end of Act I somebody was simply bound to turn up who knew all. However, he rented one half of a divided old manor house, and, even when informed that the other half was inhabited by a widow of quiet habits, he apparently did not share my own instant certainty that there were coincidences ahead. As a matter of fact E. EVERETT-GREEN, the author, had so arranged matters that this lady was the sister-in-law of a wicked murderer, for whose crime the gallant _Colonel_ had himself been tried. So much for his past; but as a matter of fact that of the lady was ever so much more sinister. She had, it appeared, married a gentleman called _Paul Enderby_, only to learn after the ceremony that her husband had a twin-brother _Saul_, who must have been the twinniest twin that ever breathed, since at no moment could any living soul tell the two apart. I won't harrow you with details, but the confusion was such that, even after the unlamented decease of _Paul_, poor bewildered _Mrs. Enderby_ was by no means sure that she wasn't only a bereaved sister-in-law. Her sad plight reminded me of nothing so much as that of the lady in _Engaged_ who entreated to have three questions answered: "Am I a widow, and if so how came I to be a widow, and whose widow came I to be?" The great difference between the two cases is that this of _Mrs. Enderby_ is meant to be taken with solemnity--a task that I regret to add was too heavy for me. I am only sorry that so charming a title as _The Double House_ has been so sadly wasted. * * *