Moby Lane and Thereabouts. By A. Neil Lyons. (John Lane.
6s.)—" There are persons in the world," says Mr. Lyons, " who possess what I may call an early-morning mind : persons who not only are alert and intelligent at ten o'clock in the morning, but who are cheerful and talkative at that hour, and even earlier; persons who chat at the breakfast table : persons who sing in their bath I Let me begin this scientific discourse by stating very clearly, that I am one of these persons." After reading his collection of little sketches, we cannot for a moment doubt the truth of this assertion. There is, all through the book, a freshness of outlook which is infectious, an incisive, humorous style, above all a keen plunging into the middle of things. Nothing is too insignificant, nothing too sordid, nothing too transcendent. Whether it be in the coming of the Mobies them- selves, of whom there are seven, not counting the perambulator, or in the horrid grimness of Young Crispin's death, or in the delicate humour of Uncle Alf, Mr. Lyons shows everywhere the same unspoiled eagerness to set down the thing that he has seen. Only, since his experience is wide and varied, do not listen to his stories a ith an ingenuous or fastidious mind.
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