24 OCTOBER 1891, Page 21

Aboveboard. By W. C. Metcalfe. (J. Nisbet and Co.)—This story

of a cruise is about as full of adventures as it can well be, having, in addition, a meeting with a pirate and a visit, pro- longed, we might add, to an iceberg. From the style of the nautical expressions, the meeting with the pirate seems to us to savour of an anachronism; but there is plenty of " go" in the narrative, and the incidents succeed each other with a very plausible probability. The element of love barely makes its appearance at all, but Aboveboard is a fair specimen of a "Christmas yarn." The illustrations are, as usual in these tales of adventure, simply detestable ; fortunately for the book, they are very few.