An even more terrifying picture is painted of the book reviewer. He was, according to Gibbs, "A young, anemic-looking man with fair, wavy hair, going a little gray, and a pale, haggard, clean-shaven face, seated, with his elbows on the desk, a novel opened before him and six other novels in a pile at his elbow. He was smoking a cigarette, and the third finger of his left hand was deeply stained with nicotine. As Luttrell entered he groaned slightly and pushed back a lock of his fair hair from his forehead." We would like to find something personal in that portrait or at least to hope that we might be like that after a few years more of this terrific strain. But we doubt it. Despite eleven years of unremitting toil we have been unable to wear ourselves gray or conspicuously haggard or clean shaven. It is not easy. To be sure, we have heard many newspaper men picturing themselves as butterflies broken on the wheel, but always with a melancholy gusto. Moreover, that was in the days when Jack's and Joel's were open all night. We can't speak with authority about Fleet Street, nor even pretend to be infallible about Park Row, but it is our impression that newspaper work is easier than any of the other professions except the ministry. And the easiest sort of newspaper work is dramatic criticism or book reviewing. If you are not sure of your facts you can just leave them out, and even if they get in wrong it doesn't matter much. There is a certain amount of work to be done in the first two or three years, but by that time the critic should have a particular pigeonhole in his brain for practically every book or play which comes along. Upon seeing "I'll Say It Is" in 1922 all he has to do is to remember what he said about "Have Another" in 1920. Once or twice a year a book or play comes along which doesn't fit into any pigeonhole, but that can be dismissed in one paragraph as "queer" and allowed to go at that. Merrick's Women The novels of Leonard Merrick go a long way in reconciling us to the constitutional establishment of the single standard of morals proposed by William Jennings Bryan. Merrick's world is a hard one for women. His men starve romantically in a pretty poverty. Their dingy haunts are of the gayest. Bad luck only adds to their merriment. So it is, too, with the Kikis and Mignons, but Merrick's good women are of much more fragile stuff. Although invariably English, they grow pale and woebegone just as easily in London as in Paris. The author never gives them any fun at all. A harsh word makes them tremble, but they fear kindness even more. When they are not starving they are fluttering confoundedly because somebody has spoken to them.