The publishers of _Sir Limpidus_ (COLLINS) call it, in large print, a "new and amusing novel," but I am not confident about your subscription to the latter part of that statement; for Mr. MARMADUKE PICKTHALL'S irony is either so subtle or so heavy (I cannot be positive which) that one may well imagine a not too dull-witted reader going from end to end without discovering the hidden intent. The subject of the tale, which has no special plot, is a numbskull landowner, _Sir Limpidus_, son of _Sir Busticus_, lord of Clearfount Abbey, and type (according to Mr. PICKTHALL) of the landowning class that he evidently considers ripe for abolition. As propaganda to that end he conducts his hero through the usual career of the pre-war aristocrat, sending him to public school and Varsity (those sufficiently broad targets), giving him a marriage, strictly _de convenance_, with the daughter of a peer, and finishing him off as a member of the Government, alarmed at Socialist hecklers and welcoming the War as likely to give a new direction to forces that threaten to become too strong for his well-meaning incompetence. "It would rouse the ancient spirit of the people and dispel their madness.... Even defeat as a united nation would be better than ignoble peace with the anarchic mob supreme." Of course this may be highly amusing, but-- The fact is that, with a disappointment the greater from having genial memories of a former book of his, I have to confess myself one of the dullards for whom Mr. PICKTHALL'S satirical darts fall apparently pointless. I am sorry. * * * * * I am feeling a little peevish about _Ladies in Waiting_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), because Miss KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN has often charmed me by her writing in the past, and now she has disappointed me. Her latest book contains five stories, all nicely written and set in charming scenes; but their innocent sweetness is very nearly insipid, and the fact that Miss WIGGIN'S only concern has been to find suitable husbands for her six heroines (there are two in one story) makes them curiously unexciting. Of course we all know that in American fiction the hero and heroine will in the end marry, to their mutual satisfaction; but unless the author can contrive _en route_ a few obstacles which will intrigue the reader a marriage announcement in the newspapers would be more economical and quite as interesting. It is difficult to be "nice" and "funny," I know, and it was very noble of Miss WIGGIN if one quality had to be left out to cling to the niceness; but I hope that in her next book she will manage to be both. * * * * *