desert; it is therefore good that a writer so well equipped as "YEO"
should tell us a little of what our soldiers there are doing for the
cause, the special variety of beastliness that they are enduring (to
read the chapter called "Plagues of Egypt" is enough to make one seek
out an English wasp and embrace it with tears of affection), and the
courage and humour that support them in their task. Something more
than this, too; the wholly illogical and baffling humanity that--one
likes to think--helps to differentiate the British fighting man, and
must surely cause certain European people such bewildered qualms, if
they ever hear of it. Read, for example, that grim and moving story
of the Corporal who thought shooting was too good for Bedouin rebels,
and what he actually did to a family of them who interrupted these
reflections. But I forgot; this is one of the chapters that I was not
going to mention.

* * * * *

Miss MARGARET PETERSON's _Fate and the Watcher_ (HURST AND BLACKETT)
was already reminding me strongly of _The Broken Road_ when I found
that one of her characters had been struck by this same idea: "Lady
Daring was not easy in mind, remembering the look in Prince Channa's
eyes the evening of the ball. She had a vague memory of a novel by
Mason that she had once read which dealt more or less with the same
situation." This naïve admission must be my excuse for making odious
comparisons between the two books and saying that Mr. MASON'S novel,
which also treats of a native prince's love for an English girl, is
on bigger and broader lines. In _Fate and the Watcher_ the heroine
and the cause of all the trouble is a waif taken literally from the
gutter. She develops into a most unscrupulous minx, and, although we
are led to suppose that her defects of character were largely due to