It would seem that “BARTIMEUS” occupies the same relative position towards the silent Navy of 1917 that JOHN STRANGE WINTER did towards the Army of the pre-KIPLING era.  All his men are magnificent fellows, his women sympathetic and courageous.  The Hun, depicted as an unsportsman-like brute (which he is), invariably gets it in the neck (which, I regret to say, he doesn’t).  And so all is for the best in the best of all possible services.  In the Navy they are nothing if not consistent and, while the military storyteller who did not have his knife into the higher command would be looked upon as a freak, “BARTIMEUS” loyally includes amongst his galaxy of perfect people Lords of the Admiralty no less than the lower ratings.  No one knows the Navy and its business better than “BARTIMEUS,” and he owes his popularity to that fact.  Yet he tells us very little about it, preferring to dwell on the personal attributes of his individual heroes, throwing in just enough incidental detail to give his stories the proper sea tang.  Of late a good many people have been busy informing us that the Navy, like GILBERT’S chorus-girl, is no better than it should be.  But the fault, if there be one, does not lie with the men that “BARTIMEUS” has selected to write about in his latest novel, The Long Trick (CASSELL), which will therefore lose none of the appreciation it deserves on that account.  And with such a leal and brilliant champion to take the part of the Navy afloat, the Navy ashore, whether in Parliament or out of it, may very well be left to take care of itself.

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Although Sir ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE calls his collection of detective stories His Last Bow (MURRAY), and also warns us that Sherlock Holmes is “somewhat crippled by occasional attacks of rheumatism,” there is not in my lay opinion any cause for alarm.  If I may jest about such an austere personage as Sherlock, I should say that there are several strings still left to his bow, and that the ever amenable and admiring Watson means to use them for all they are worth.  At any rate I sincerely hope so, for if it is conceivable that some of us grow weary of Sherlock’s methods when we are given a long draught of them no one will deny that they are palatable when taken a small dose at a time. Sherlock, in short, is a national institution, and if he is to be closed now and for ever I feel sure that the Bosches will claim to have finished him off.  And that would be a pity.  Of these eight stories the best are “The Dying Detective” and the “Bruce-Partington Plans,” but all of them are good to read, except perhaps “The Devil’s Foot,” which left a “most sinister impression” on dear old Watson’s mind, and incidentally on my own.

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