What Next ? By Denis Mackail. (John Murray. 7s. 6d.
net.)—Mr. Denis Mackail has an hereditary right to our interest on the appearance of his first novel, and in What Next ? he has followed Stevenson's dictum that there is " nothing like a little judicious levity." The book is purely an extravaganza, and the wonderful valet, " Lush," who enters into partnership with his master and saves the financial situation, could never by any possibility have existed in real life. Mr. Mackail's fairy- land is an amusing place, but not perhaps quite as diverting as it might have been. He gives us many brilliant epigrams and comments, but the actual situations in the story are not quite as amusingly devised as they should be in this class of literature. They do not grip the attention and dwell in the mind so that they recur to the reader in real life—sometimes at most incon- venient moments—as do the situations of the masters of this type of entertainment. Mr. Mackail's pen moves with a slightly inexperienced stiffness, which no doubt time will cure. Still, we cannot help hoping that he will not adopt this particular type of novel as his medium. as there are evidences in his writing that he would do better in what may be called " legitimate comedy " than in the regions of pare farce.
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