_The Tale of Mr. Tubbs_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is one of those which hover agreeably between low comedy and refined farce, in a world which, being frankly to the last degree improbable, makes no urgent demand for belief. Sometimes indeed (as I have observed before with Mr. J.E. BUCKROSE) the characters themselves are more credible than the way in which they carry on. Thus while _Mr. Tubbs_, the middle-aged and high-principled champion of distress, is both human and likeable, I was never persuaded that any more real motive than regard for an amusing situation would compel him to saddle himself with the continued society of a squint-eyed maid-servant and her yellow cat, turned adrift through his unfortunate attempts to befriend them. I think I need not tell you all, or even a part of all, that happens to _Mr. Tubbs_ and _Belinda_ and the yellow cat after their arrival as fugitives at the pleasant village of Holmes-Eaton, or do more than hint at the trials of this poor knight-errant, mistaken for a burglar and a libertine, till the hour when (the book being sufficiently full) he is rewarded with the hand of beauty and the prospect of what I will venture to call a Buckroseate future. They were no more than his due for remaining a consistent gentleman amid the temptations of farce. One word of criticism however; surely Mr. BUCKROSE has made a study of _The Boy's Own Paper_ less intimate than mine if he supposes that a story with such a title as "The Red Robbers of Ravenhill" could ever have gained admittance to those chaste columns. * * * * * _John Justinian Jellicoe_, the hero's father in _The Quest of the Golden Spurs_ (JARROLD), possessed a secretive and peculiar disposition. Not only did he conceal his true nature from his son, but he also left a will with some remarkable clauses which made it necessary for _J.J.J., Junior_, to work and wait for his inheritance; and it is the tale of his search for it that Mr. SHAUN MALORY tells us here. Perhaps I have known treasure-hunts in which I have followed the scent with a more abandoned interest. But we are given some fine hunting, with a surprise at the end of it, and what more can treasure-hunters, or we who read of them, possibly want? The date of this quest is modern, and more than once I found myself thinking that the twentieth century was not the fittest period in which to lay such a plot as this. But I am content to believe that Mr. MALORY knows his business better than I do, and as--like a good huntsman--he has left me with a keen desire to go a-hunting with him again, I beg to thank him for my day's sport. * * * * * [Illustration: "'ELLO, DOROFEE WATKINS, I SEE YER HIDING THERE!"] * * * * * OUR ERUDITE CONTEMPORARIES.