Mr. LINCOLN COLCORD, writer of short stories of the sea, republished under title _The Game of Life and Death_ (MACMILLAN), has taken no pains to conceal his admirable model. There surely never was, outside conscious parody, so conspicuously derivative a method of handling similar types and subjects. It was a bold thing to do. He has not CONRAD'S fastidious sense of words, nor his masterly suggestion of atmosphere, so much more felt than actually expressed, nor his patient sure unravelling of motives; and in "The Voice of the Dead" he commits a piece of shocking bad Wardour Street, of which by no conceivable lapse could his master have been guilty. But there is a whiff of the sea in his work; his types, if cruder, have life, and he often contrives some ingenious turn in the situation which gives the story interest. _The Game of Life and Death_--which ends in a hand of poker played between Chinese merchants and pirates, with two lives and much money and gear for stake--is a good yarn, though it leans on the inartistic unlikelihood of a royal capping a straight flush--which is piling it on too thick. The tale of "The Moths" that haunted a man who took them for the souls of wronged women provides a sufficient thrill. "De Long" is just the kind of story of the crooked cosmopolitan ship-chandler that CONRAD would write, indeed has written. _Nichols_, the narrator of this and others, is made after the model of his reflective skippers. And here the challenge gets too near for Mr. COLCORD'S chances. Still the yarns go well with a seasoned pipe; and that is no mean recommendation. * * *