Metempsychosis .

Laughing Gas. By P: G. WodehoRse. (Jenkins. '78.

I wisp I knew :what relation the elaborately pictorial dust- wrappers On Mr. Wodehouse's novels are supposed to hgive

to the books themselves, and what effect. they are meant to have on the reader. The latest seems to have severed all connexion with reality. Possibly it- should be taken as an

unintentional comment on the tale it adorns. - For in Laughing Gas Mr. Wodehouse soars into realms of fantasy more remote

than any he has yet explored.

There are, one may say, points de repgre. The inhabitants of this strange world, for example, are not unfamiliar. There

is a Drone in the unprepossesiing person of Reginald, third Earl of Havershot ; a raffish cousin ; a whizzing beauty, the " talkie " wonder of all gazing eyes ; the good girl who

comes into her own ; a film mogul and even a butler, though the latter, it is true, turns out to be phonus-bolonus. And the setting is the Hollywood of Mr. Mulliner, that sillyside

layer of the star-spangled universe at which no one has poked more delightfully ironical fun than Mr. Wodehouse.

But it is Hollywood through the looking glass, for the fatal peripeteia is more peculiar than any that has hitherto altered the fortunes of Mr. Wodehouse's characters.

-• At the point:of declaring his love for the star, the noble lord put too 'much ice-cream into -a hollow tooth. The 'tooth had-to be extracted before he could proceed. By then, unfortunately, it was too late. • For, under the influence of gas the third Earl was -transmogrified. His soul passed into the body of Joey Cooley (second Baton Fauntleroy), Idbl of American Motherhood and Public Pest No. 1. By the laws of metempsychosis little Joey's soul was translatid into the English peerage.: It is conceivable that such things do

happen in Hollywood, where a kitchen table covered with mud can be turned, by the mere winding of a handle, into the rice fields of China after the plague. But this is not the point. We are not concerned with what—to quote a well- known publisher" E. J. O'Brien describes as a wiling suspension of disbelief" ! The point is how does a beefy peer, dressed a frilled blouse, with golden curls hanging

down his neck, pursue his courtship ; and how is the courtship likely to proceed when his own body is-occupied by an infant prodigy whose idea of fun is to put frogs into ladies' beds and whose one ambition-in life is to plinth his rivals' noses,

the outstanding target being the film-star's.

Like all Mr. WodehOuse's plots, this hidicrous situation is developed with immense elaboration, arid so wittily • that

one is all but convinced of its validity. Theft is a dteadful moment when the good. girl. insists on giving Lord Havershot his bath.; an extremely comic one when this Bottom translated is spanked by an. outraged beauty; and another (at which I laughed out loud) when the Idol of American Motherhood is disCovered comforting the inner nobleman with whisky and cigarettes. The wrong exits and entrances are beautifully timed to prevent the two

souls from escaping until the hero's eyes are opened to the perfidy of the star and his heart to the love of the good girl.

This is the old Wodehouse formula, of course, though once again it is put in such a way that it does not pall: Take, for instance, the following passage where Lord Havershot's chances are being discussed : • " Ann wouldn't look at me."

" Of course she would."

"Sure she would," said the child. "He's an Oil," he added to

Eggy. (Egremont, the deplorable cousin.) - " I know he's an Oil: And the typo of Oil of which England is justly proud."

" Any dame would like to marry an Oil. . .

" She wouldn't look at me," I-repeated.

The Cooley half-portion addressed Eggy. " He's thinking of his filed.'

" Oh ? " said Eggy::. " Oil, matter, yes, of -course " What donsfellow's fat mafter, anyWay ? " said Joey Cooley.

" Exactly.".

" Looks don't mean a thing. Didn't Frankenstein get married ? " " Did he ? " said Eggy. " I don't know. I never met him.

Harrow than, I expect:" . .

And so on to ti happy issue frnni these farcical afflictions. Laughing Gas is a worthy interlude between the great Jeeves and Blandings Ac;t..s. The stage is surely set by now for