tale itself is a good-humoured little comedy of European and native
intrigue, showing how one section of the populace strove as usual to
ease the white man's burden by flirtation and gossip, and the other
to get the best for themselves by unlimited roguery and chicane. The
whole thing culminates in a trial scene which is at once a delightful
entertainment and (I should suppose) a shrewdly observed study of the
course of Anglo-Burmese justice. I think I would have chosen that Mr.
LOWIS should base his fun on something a little less grim than the
murder and mutilation of a European, or at least Eurasian, lady, even
though the very slight part in the action played by _Mrs. Rodrigues_,
when alive, could hardly be called sympathetic. Still we were all so
good-humoured over her taking-off that for a long time I cherished
a rather dream-like faith in her reappearance to prove that this
attitude had been justified. Not that Mr. LOWIS has not every right to
retort that he is writing comedy rather than farce; certainly he has
made his four blind mice to run in highly diverting fashion, very
entertaining to those of us who see how they run; and as they at
least save their tails triumphantly it would perhaps be ungenerous to
complain about one that doesn't.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Damsel._ "OH, PROFESSOR, CAN YOU PROVIDE ME WITH A
LOVE-POTION? MY MOTHER SAYS IF I WED NOT SOON I MUST E'EN GO FORTH TO
EARN MY LIVING."

_Alchemist._ "THAT I CAN, MADAM, AND OF TWO KINDS. FIRST, THE
SLOW-WORKING PURPLE SORT IS VERILY CHEAP, BUT DIFFICULT OF
ADMINISTRATION; FOR IN WATER IT IS PLAINLY VISIBLE AND EASY OF
DISCERNMENT IN TEA. WHEREAS MY PATENT POTION, BRINGING LOVE AT FIRST