The pictorial wrapper of _A Man of the Islands_ (HUTCHINSON) is embellished with a drawing of a coffee-coloured lady in a costume that it would be an under-statement to call curtailed, also (inset, as the picture-papers say) the portrait of a respectable-looking gentleman in a beard. In the printed synopsis that occupies the little tuck-in part of the same wrapper you are promised "an entrancing picture of breaking seas on lonely islands and tropical nights beneath the palms." In other words Mr. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE as before. Lest however you should suppose the insularity of this attractive pen-artist to be in danger of becoming overdone, I will say at once that the six tales from which the book takes its name occupy not much more than a third of it, the rest being filled with stories of varied setting bearing such titles as "The Queen's Necklace," "The Box of Bonbons," and the like--all frankly to be grouped under the head of "Financial Measures." This said, it is only fair to add that the half-dozen _Sigurdson_ adventures--he was the Man of the Islands, a bearded trader, murderer, pearl thief and what not--seem to me a group of as rattling good yarns as of their kind one need wish to meet, every one with some original and thrilling situation that lifts it far above pot-boiling status. I could wish (despite anything above having a contrary sound) that Mr. STACPOOLE had given us a whole volume with that South Sea setting that so happily stimulates his fancy. * * * * * Mr. S. P. B. MAIS has not yet extricated himself from the groove into which he has fallen. It is not a wholesome groove, and even if it were I should not wish an author of his capacity to remain a perpetual tenant of it. In _Colour Blind_ (GRANT RICHARDS) we are given the promiscuous amours of a schoolmaster, a subject which has apparently a peculiar attraction for Mr. MAIS. _Jimmy Penruddocke_, who tells the story, left the Army and could not find a job until he was offered a mastership at a public school. The school rather than _Jimmy_ has my sympathies. There was nothing peculiarly alluring about this philanderer to account for the devastating magnetism which he exerted upon the female heart. To describe all this orgy of caresses could hardly have been worth anyone's time and trouble; certainly it was not worth Mr. MAIS'S. I say this with all the more assurance because, greatly as I dislike the main theme of this novel, there are many good things in it. There is, for example, _Mark Champernowne_ (_Jimmy's_ friend), a finely and consistently drawn character, and there are descriptive passages which are vividly beautiful and also some delightful gleams of humour. I think that when Mr. MAIS'S sense of humour has developed further he will agree with me that a man who loved as promiscuously as _Jimmy_ and then wrote over three hundred pages about it could, without much straining of the truth, be called a cad.