The Second-Class Passenger, and other Stories. By Perceval Gibbon. (Methuen
and Co. 6s.)—These fifteen short stories keep up to a good level. Those into which Mr. Gibbon intro- duces the supernatural are, as one would expect, the least successful, but there is originality in them. For instance, there is the story of the honest old sea captain who loses an arm and cannot at first remember that it is not there to use. When his newly married son is taking his first ship out of port as captain and is tipsy, he supports the son with his one arm and at the vital moment saves the vessel by ringing the telegraph with the lost hand, so he believes. The stories have every variety of setting in all quarters of the globe. The fact that they suffer from being "lumped" together in one book is inevitable. It emphasizes unduly the writer's effort to seize on one dramatic point in each story, a desire which he generally attains successfully.
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