"A TRAP TO CATCH A SUNBEAM."

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1948, 3 January 1914, Page 9

"A TRAP TO CATCH A SUNBEAM."

Diou. Clayton Calthrop ,is a young i .and-very promising novelist, whoso work is sure to i.ecome more widely popular • a; it is tetter knowu. Not for somo time past have 1 read a prettier, moro humorous, moro fascinating novel than this author's new story, "A Trap to Catch a Sunbeam" (Hodder and Stoughton). The. story opens' in Paris, where a young Englishman, tho future Lord Pcppfil, is wasting his substance in riotous living, to put matter quite plainly, having, in the slang of the day, "a high old time"'at Maxim's, tho Abbaye do Theleme and similar resorts. His father dies suddenly and 'two-'brothers journey to the City of Light, and bring the prodigal homo to tho highly encumbered ancestral estates. Tho now Lord Peppril, however, has no taste lor the duties .of a lord of the manor, and a humdrum, if aristocratic, atmosphere. So he makes off to tho South Pacific, is wrecked, and is-sup-posed to bo drowned.. As a matter of fact, he is cast upon a lovely island, where he meets an equally lovely young French lady plus a mysterious soi disant Fronch nobleman, her father. Tho pretty Miranda charms ths British Prospero, arid then the father dies, confessing, however, before he departs this life, that in reality he is a-runaway French bank cashier,' who has robbed' his "follow thieves—and sent them to gaol—and has with the stolen capital amassed a considerable fortune. Prospero swears to keep , tho secret, and takes his.'Miranda back to Paris, the girl,' as yet. all; unconscious, 'of- her father's, rascality arid real identity. In ; Paris .tlie. love-makiri;>;is continued; arid.all goes .well until;'tli6": thr'eol old 'ij.oto-' ;j'ades;'6f.pauvrc. papa''turn ; iip; and mostmcolisicieratel.y blurt pWthc : ;whol& ugly Hruth'.to.'the muehastoiiishctl, arid-te'do; ;hbr credit,;••much shocked young, lady. Tho■ fortune' i 3 made; over to the "gang',' and; the adventure-loving young British' nobleman', -accused by .his-, lady love of having been a willing party to. her father's deception, is turned adrift. The next scene is London, who re the disconsolate Jord, upon visiting his lawyers,: find 3 his estates have been so carefully nursed that he is nor a very wealthy mail. A return te the ancestral ' homo, a. sensible and . liberal arrangement with a younger brother, who revels in the lord of the manor role, and then back to Paris, to explain all. to,_ and to be promptly forgiven and passionately embraced by, the charming Suzette. Then a wedding and the curtain. Mr. Calthrop has written a very jolly story, tho love-making in which is pretty enough to please the sentimentally inclined. whilst for others' there is >i

plentiful supply of (jutot humour and ;i fine air of romance.