[Illustration: _Knight_ (_to his henchman_). "EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT, PERKINS? YOU HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN ANYTHING? WHAT'S THAT?" _Henchman_. "IT'S THE PORTRAIT OF YOUR LADY, SIR, THAT YOU PROMISED TO TAKE INTO BATTLE WITH YOU, SIR." _Knight_. "DID I? WELL, I MUST E'EN KEEP MY WORD. FASTEN IT ON MY BACK. ONE NEVER KNOWS--IT MAY BE USEFUL IN CASE OF A REVERSE."] * * * * * It seems rather a bright idea of C. NINA BOYLE to dedicate "to THEA and IRENE, whose lives have lain in sheltered ways," a seven-shilling shocker about ways that are anything but sheltered. Perhaps the sheltered in general, and Thea and Irene in particular, will take it from me that the villainies of _Out of the Frying Pan_ are much larger than life or, at any rate, much more concentrated, and that pseudo-orphans like _Maisie_ usually have a better chance of getting out of frying-pans into something cool than the author allows her heroine. I also submit that there was nothing in _Maisie's_ equipment to suggest that she would have been quite so slow in separating goats from sheep. But let me say that THEA and IRENE have had dedicated to them an exciting and amusing _fritto misto_ of crooks, demi-mondaines, blackmailers, gamblers, roues, murderers, receivers and decent congenital idiots of all sorts. The characterisation is adroitly done and the workmanship avoids that slovenliness which makes nineteen out of twenty books of this kind a weariness of spirit to the perceptive. I wonder if _Maisie_ with such a father and mother would have been such a darling. Perhaps Professor KARL PEARSON will explain. * * * * * The _Hon. William Toppys_ (pronounced "Tops"), brother of _Lord Topsham_, left Devonshire and retired to an island in the Torres Straits. There he married a Melanesian woman and became the father of a frizzy-haired and coffee-coloured son. It is a little strange to me, who think of Mr. BENNET COPPLESTONE as Devonian to the tip of his pen-finger, that the _Hon. William_ is not rebuked for so shamelessly deserting his native county. Instead he is almost applauded for his wisdom, and this despite the fact that he quite spoilt the look of the family tree with his exotic graft. For in the course of time his son, insularly known as _Willatopy_, inherited the title and became twenty-eighth (no less) _Baron of Topsham_. Mr. COPPLESTONE does not realise the vast difference between light comedy and broad farce, but apart from this substantial reservation I can vouch that his yarn of _Madame Gilbert's Cannibal_ (MURRAY) is deftly spun. Should you decide to follow the famous _Madame Gilbert_ when she visits the island where the twenty-eighth baron lived you will witness a lively and unusual entertainment. * * * * * Transcriber's Note: Page 355: "Ruined! the old place mortgaged! faugh!" [double quote added]. Page 356: "_They_ always do that." [double quote inserted].