21 APRIL 1928, Page 35

Some Books of the Week

WE shall hear more of Mr. James Laver. His Stitch in Time, or Pride Prevents a Fall (Nonesuch Press) is out of print and topics may hardly be haa for fifty guineas. It is perhaps the

wittiest thing of its kind since Pope ; this story of a girl who, going to a tete-a-tete tea, rips her eau-de-nil chemise, and, being in a hurry, darns it with pink thread. When tempted, vanity saves her where virtue would not. The moral (such as there is) is that :

. . . When you too are into ambush led And all your virtue hangs upon a thread, When men entrap you and the gods forget, One touch of vanity may save you yet."

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