The Purple Frogs. By H. W. Westbrook and Lawrence Grossmith.
(Heath, Cranton, and Ouseley. 6s.)--We would not have minded so much if it were merely that the gods had denied all sense of humour to the authors collaborating in The Purple Frogs ; but we cannot overlook the fact that they can be funny if they try, and that they do not try. The theme underlying their extraordinary novel is almost worthy of Gilbert, as is the character of Vaughan, the butler, who ern- barks upon a profession hitherto untried—that of black mail by means of the incriminating letters thrown overboard in bottles by people who subsequently escape drowning; and the fun grows, or might grow, fast and furious, when the heroine, recovering and concealing such a bottle, is hailed by her friends as a dipsomaniac. The pity of it all is that the writers should have forgotten that brevity is the soul of wit, and should have wasted and lost so excellent a plot in a book of unutterable dulness and complexity. The curious title of the story is that of a novelette, written by the chief character, which is here reproduced at full length, and illustrated in a pseudo- Futurist manner by manuscript music, irrelevant, but in itself charming. It is surely kindest to suppose that Mr. Westbrook and Mr. Grossmith mean us to discover at the end that they never intended to be funny at all. This hardly seems an adequate reward for their trouble, or ours.
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