The Adventures of Downy V. Green. By George Calderon. (Smith,
Elder, and Co. 3s. 6d.)—It may be as well to explain that Mr. Downy V. Green is the grandson of Mr. Verdant Green. whom many of our readers will identify with a certain Oxford fresh. man some fifty-odd years ago. Mr. Verdant Green prospered at. the Bar, rising to the Bench, for which he had, among other qualifications, "an ignorance of common matters of knowledge" which has been a marked characteristic of some eminent Judges. His younger son discovers the secret of making a soap out of petroleum, and settles in the United States to be near the petroleum fields. It is his son "Downy V." of whose career as a Rhodes Scholar we are permitted to read something in this book. It is vastly amusing, not so much from the comic situations which are created as from the amazing dialect in which it is written. What fortunate people these Americans are I They cannot open their mouths without making the world laugh. Breakfast is " ham-fixings " ; a professor is a " Greek clinger"; a man's favourite drink is his " long suit." This does not sound very funny ; but our readers may take our assurance that the book is amusing in a high degree.
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