Prodigals and Sons. By John Ayscough. (Chatto and Windus. 6s.)—There
is one supremely good story among the twenty-seven which compose this book, and that is the account, which is called " Changed," of the result of an old farmer persuading a London artist to paint him a large portrait of his dead father. No reader who wishes to laugh aloud in his chair should miss this highly entertaining sketch, but the rest of the book is not up to this level. Indeed, it is not up to " John Ayscough's " usual standard. Short stories are never his forte, but these are rather more commonplace than others which he has written. It is difficult to know what the author means in the story, "The Moti Mahal Mystery," by talking of the cutting of pearls in the European manner. Surely pearls are never cut. They are sometimes ha:ved, but this is a mid-Victorian fashion which has long since fallen into well-deserved contempt. "John Ayscough " has presum- ably not been mucts concerned in his life with precious stones, and in this instance has probably confused pearls with diamonds.
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