Should you, among wild by-ways of Donegal or Connemara, meet a procession composed of _Patsy McCann_ the Tinker and the Ass and _Mary_ with _Finaun_ the Archangel, _Caeltia_ the Seraph, _Art_ the Cherub, _Eileen ni Cooley_ (a savage lady of easy morals), _Billy the Music_, the Seraph Cuchulain and _Brien O'Brien_, a lost soul who had a threepenny-bit stolen on him by _Cuchulain_ that same, you would guess there's only one living man could be behind it--to wit JAMES STEPHENS, _Crock-of-Gold_ STEPHENS. Fantastic things indeed happen in _The Demi-Gods_ (MACMILLAN), which is a kind of inspired nightmare, a sort of Chestertonian inconsequence done into Gaelic, a little less violent and with a little less malt, but even less coherent. At the risk of being reckoned among the egregiously imperceptive I would ask Mr. STEPHENS solemnly whether he is not in danger of letting his fancy take bit between teeth and land him in some bog of sheer literary chaos. The most distant of the futurists notwithstanding, there must be some rules to the game or you don't get your work of art. When those modern wizards of the halls set themselves to a piece of _bizarre_ juggling, say, with a string of pearls, a dumb-bell and a rose-petal, they do toss and catch--don't merely let everything just drop. Mr. STEPHENS will know what I mean without caring overmuch. There's something in it all the same. Anyway, there really are in _The Demi-Gods_ delicate shy pearls and gleams of the authentic gold of the original _Crock_. And after all it wasn't written for middle-aged gentlemen of the Saxon tribe. * * * * * Illustration: GERMAN SPIES TAKING LESSONS FROM CONJURER IN THE ART OF CONCEALING PIGEONS. * * * * * Another Impending Apology. "The Shipton family were too well known for anything to be said in their praise."--_Buxton Advertiser._