_The Honourable Percival_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) may at least claim to have established a record in one respect. I think I never met a full-sized novel with a more slender plot. The _Honourable Percival Hascombe_, on a pleasure tour in the Pacific, met _Miss Roberta Boynton_, and fell in love with her. This, I give you my word, is all there is of it. But, if you think that so slight a thread will be insufficient to hold your interest, you reckon without the cunning of ALICE HEGAN RICE, who has spun it. There are those of us who worship _Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch_. There are also those who don't. But while regretfully classing myself among the benighted to whom this Best Seller appealed in vain, I hasten to add that I have nothing but gratitude for _The Honourable Percival_. This record of a shipboard romance is done with the daintiest art, delicate, tender, humorous, and not (as is the fault with so many American romances) oversweetened. The development of _Percival_ from a priggish misanthrope to a man and a lover is beautifully told. Also a great part of the charm of the tale lies in its setting, a series of cinemascopic views of the ports touched at by the _S.S. Saluria_, so vividly portrayed that you will close the book with quite the feeling of the returned traveller. One small but poignant surprise the ending has in store, which I will not spoil by anticipation. * * * * * End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 148, January 13th 1915, by Various