You will get quite a serviceable impression of what the highlands and highlanders of Serbia and Montenegro were like in war, behind the lines when the lines still held, from _The Luck of Thirteen_ (SMITH, ELDER), by JAN GORDON (colourist) and CORA his wife, if you are not blinded by the perpetual flashes of brightness--such flashes as "somebody had gnawed a piece from one of the wheels" as an explanation of jolting; "the twistiest stream, which seemed as though it had been designed by a lump of mercury on a wobbling plate;" the trees in the mist "seemed to stand about with their hands in their pockets, like vegetable Charlie----" But no! I am hanged if I will write the accursed name. This plucky pair of souls had put in some stiff months of typhus-fighting with a medical mission in the early months of the war, and these are impressions of the holiday which they took thereafter among those fateful hills, with a little carrying of despatches, retrieving of stores and a good deal of parasite-hunting thrown in, until they were finally caught up in the tragic Serbian retreat; still remaining, of course, incurably "bright." I think I detect a certain amount of the too-British attitude that contemns what is strange and is more than a little scornful of poverty, official and private. And I suppose the artist's wife will scoff if I tell her that I was shocked that she should have taken some shots at the Austrians with a Montenegrin machine gun, as if war was just a cock-shy for tourists. But I was. If Mr. JAN GORDON found a good deal more colour in his subjects than we other fellows would have been able to see, that's what an artist's for. * * * * * [Illustration: SALVE. _Returning Soldier._ "'ULLO, MOTHER!" _His Wife (with stoic self-control)._ "'ULLO, FRED. BETTER WIPE YER BOOTS BEFORE YOU COME IN--AFTER THEM MUDDY TRENCHES."] * * * * * In _Jitny and the Boys_ (SMITH, ELDER) there are those elements of patriotism, humour and pathos which I find so desirable in War-time books. _Jitny_ was neither man nor woman, but a motor-car, and without disparaging those who drove her and rode in her I am bound to say that she was as much alive as any one of them. She certainly talked--or was responsible for--a lot of motor-shop, and I took it all in with the greatest ease and comfort. _Jitny_ indeed is a great car, but she is not exactly the heroine of a novel. She is just the sit-point from which a very human family surveys the world at a time when that world is undergoing a vast upheaval. In the father of this family Mr. BENNET COPPLESTONE has scored an unqualified success, but the boys are perhaps a little old for their years. This, however, is no great matter, for the essential fact is that the book is full of the thoughts which make us proud to-day and help us to face to-morrow. Yes, _Jitny_ has my blessing. * * * * * Little Willie goes for more Loot.