SOME RECENT FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2362, 19 January 1915, Page 7

SOME RECENT FICTION.

"BY BLOW AND KISS." Boyd Cable's "By Blow and Kies" (Hodder and Stoughton, per S. and W. ■ Maokay) is one of the best- stories of Australian up-country life that I have Toad for some time past. The hero, a handsome, recklessly brave young station hand, ifi falsely accused of murder, and through the knavery of a rival loses for a time the love of his sweetheart, the nieco of his overseer - at the Coolongolong Station. Through the devotion of a jolly Irish constable and his wife, Steve Knight's character is completely cleared, and the story closes with a reunion of hearts, for a time estranged but never actually severed, Tho local colour of the novel, is picture6que, and rings true. Specially good is the author's description of the havoc wrought by a long-continued drought. The frontispiece and end paper drawings are so well drawn that it seems a great pity that the artist's signature should be undecipherable. MORE FUN FROM "SAKI." Mr. H. H. Munro ("Saki"), the author of "Beasts and Super-Beasts" (John Lane; per Whiteqmbe and Tombs), has, so I read the pther day in an English paper, gone to the front with a British Territorial regiment, and by this time it is just probable he may —I assuredly hope he has —rendered it impossible lor a good score or so of Teutons to assist the Kaiser in carrying out the plan with which Mr. Munro credited tho Lord of Potsdam in that vastly-amusing book, "When William Came." "Beasts and Super-Boasts," "Saki's" new book, was published a couple of months before the war, and the title does not refer to those unspeakable "super-beasts" who, at Louvain and elsewhere, have all too faithfully followed tho Bismarckian advice, "Leave your enemy's people nothing but their eyes to weep with," Mr. Munro's book deals not with war, and consequently tho tragio side of life, but with the comedy, often the farcical comedy thereof. Those who may have read the sketches and short stories here collected, a 6 they originally appeared in "The Westminster Gazette" and other English weeklies, will be glad to chuckle and chortle anew over the delightful fun they so liberally provide. 1 am sorry that space limits taboo evon tho idea of quotation. My readers must take my word for it that Mr. Munro is a prince amongst funmakers. Stephen Leacook, for instance, I find quite tame after a course of "Shaki." This is a book . which should he found invaluable for the. dumps. By all means try "Saki," but the next time a new book of his appears I sincerely trust tho arrival of a review copy will be a trirlo less belated.