But in the Quillmore story there is no possible explanation _which will dispose of the facts_. If _Colonel Quillmore_ died in the laboratory, and _L’Oiseau_ did _not_ kill him, who did? What about the _two_ men quarreling in there at the time of the tragedy? What becomes of that other man? And how could _Quillmore’s_ son meet him again in Paris? With the exception of _L’Oiseau_, no one had _the motive_ to kill _Colonel Quillmore_; and the author made a point of showing that other people were afraid to go near the laboratory. But if the _Colonel_ did _not_ die in the laboratory, how did his false teeth get into the mouth of the dead man when _Doc. Gus_ dragged him out of the flames? How did the _Colonel’s Masonic ring_ get on the dead man’s finger? How did the _Colonel_ make his escape without being seen, and, _who was it that he quarreled with and killed before he fled_? Nobody appears to have been missing from the neighborhood. Usually when somebody is killed, somebody is missed. Had Mr. Chatterton refrained from putting another man in the laboratory, had he left the _Colonel_ dead in the flames, identified by his Masonic ring, had he left the reader to suppose that the sudden death of the _Colonel_ and the sudden blaze which broke out in the building resulted from some dangerous chemical experiment, such as the _Colonel_ delighted in—the story would have lost not a grain of interest and would have escaped a flagrant violation of the rules of literary construction. =The Game and the Candle.= By Frances Davidge. D. Appleton & Co., New York. Frances Davidge set herself too difficult a task when she attempted to make the characters in her novel. “The Game and the Candle,” speak in epigrams on every other page. The consequence is that the story, with its really brilliant beginning, develops into a commonplace love-story, and is only saved from absolute banality by its unforeseen and dramatic ending. In the field of literature which attempts to picture New York society the story will not find an enduring place, but it serves its purpose very well. The novelists are numberless who have sought to satirize our men and women of wealth and leisure; but few have given us any books that have lived longer than their allotted span of one brief season. The big society novel has not yet been written. Miss Davidge evidently knows a great deal of the foibles, the follies and the manners of the people of whom she writes, and her career is worth watching. At present she seems a bit immature and prolix, but there is no doubt as to her ability to write amazingly clever dialogue and to tell a story logically and well. Some of her characters are greatly overdrawn. One wishes that there were less of _Gussie Regan_, the hair-dresser; and _Emily Blair_, lovable as she is, could never have existed. Altogether, however, the story is pleasing and will find, doubtless, a large and appreciative audience.