_The Purple Frogs_ (HEATH, CRANTON AND OUSELEY) I can only describe as the most exasperating, not to say maddening, product of modern fiction. What on earth Messrs. H. W. WESTBROOK and LAWRENCE GROSSMITH, the joint authors, mean by it I have not the ghost of an idea. Occasionally signs are detectable that the whole thing is a practical joke; still more occasionally it even promises to become mildly amusing; and then again one is confronted with an incident (such as the visit of the armed maniac to the house of _Isambard Flanders_) serious to the point of melodrama. Not for pages and chapters did I discover any excuse for the title; and even then not much. But it appeared eventually that _Isambard Flanders_ was jealous of the friendship between his wife, _Cicely_, and _Stephen_, a young man who produced film-dramas; and that in order to score off them he wrote a novel called _The Purple Frogs_, in which he embodied his suspicions. The last half of the volume is occupied with this tale within a tale. Here possibly we have a key to the purpose of the collaboration. Anyhow, I permitted myself to form a theory that Mr. WESTBROOK (or Mr. GROSSMITH) had written a novel too exiguous for separate publication, and in this dilemma had appealed to Mr. GROSSMITH (or Mr. WESTBROOK) to provide a setting. But which wrote which, and why--these are problems that remain inscrutable. Yet another is furnished by the fact that Miss ELLA KING HALL has composed for the main story six "illustrations in music," duly reproduced. You may with luck be able to smile a little at the quaintness of these. But on the title-page they are said to be "arranged from the MS. notes of _Botolf Glenfield."_ And _Glenfield_, being only a character in the novel written by _Flanders_, couldn't possibly ... Help!
A singular accident happened to-day, Distressing to witness (I chanced to be there). A motor-'bus entered a tea-shop, and lay In some need of repair.
It was loaded with passengers, outside and in, Who straightway indulged in much turbulent talk; The latter declared that for less than a pin They would get out and walk.
But the customers who, with deplorable zest, Of tea and hot crumpets were taking their fill, Regarding the scene as an innocent jest, Simply laughed themselves ill.
