I think I should best describe the characteristic quality of _Four Blind Mice_ (LANE) as geniality. The scene of it is Burmah--astonishing, when you consider the host of novels about the rest of India, that so few should employ this equally picturesque setting--and it is quickly apparent that what Mr. C.C. LOWIS doesn't know at first hand about Rangoon is not likely to be missed. The tale itself is a good-humoured little comedy of European and native intrigue, showing how one section of the populace strove as usual to ease the white man's burden by flirtation and gossip, and the other to get the best for themselves by unlimited roguery and chicane. The whole thing culminates in a trial scene which is at once a delightful entertainment and (I should suppose) a shrewdly observed study of the course of Anglo-Burmese justice. I think I would have chosen that Mr. LOWIS should base his fun on something a little less grim than the murder and mutilation of a European, or at least Eurasian, lady, even though the very slight part in the action played by _Mrs. Rodrigues_, when alive, could hardly be called sympathetic. Still we were all so good-humoured over her taking-off that for a long time I cherished a rather dream-like faith in her reappearance to prove that this attitude had been justified. Not that Mr. LOWIS has not every right to retort that he is writing comedy rather than farce; certainly he has made his four blind mice to run in highly diverting fashion, very entertaining to those of us who see how they run; and as they at least save their tails triumphantly it would perhaps be ungenerous to complain about one that doesn't. * * * * * [Illustration: _Damsel._ "OH, PROFESSOR, CAN YOU PROVIDE ME WITH A LOVE-POTION? MY MOTHER SAYS IF I WED NOT SOON I MUST E'EN GO FORTH TO EARN MY LIVING." _Alchemist._ "THAT I CAN, MADAM, AND OF TWO KINDS. FIRST, THE SLOW-WORKING PURPLE SORT IS VERILY CHEAP, BUT DIFFICULT OF ADMINISTRATION; FOR IN WATER IT IS PLAINLY VISIBLE AND EASY OF DISCERNMENT IN TEA. WHEREAS MY PATENT POTION, BRINGING LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT, CLOSELY RESEMBLETH THE MUCH-DESIRED WHISKY. THIS SORT IS ONE GUINEA PER TOT."] * * * * *