The Honourable Percival (Hodder and Stoughton) may at least claim to have established a record in one respect. I think I never met a full-sized novel with a more slender plot. The Honourable Percival Hascombe, on a pleasure tour in the Pacific, met Miss Roberta Boynton, and fell in love with her. This, I give you my word, is all there is of it. But, if you think that so slight a thread will be insufficient to hold your interest, you reckon without the cunning of Alice Hegan Rice, who has spun it. There are those of us who worship Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. There are also those who don't. But while regretfully classing myself among the benighted to whom this Best Seller appealed in vain, I hasten to add that I have nothing but gratitude for The Honourable Percival. This record of a shipboard romance is done with the daintiest art, delicate, tender, humorous, and not (as is the fault with so many American romances) oversweetened. The development of Percival from a priggish misanthrope to a man and a lover is beautifully told. Also a great part of the charm of the tale lies in its setting, a series of cinemascopic views of the ports touched at by the S.S. Saluria, so vividly portrayed that you will close the book with quite the feeling of the returned traveller. One small but poignant surprise the ending has in store, which I will not spoil by anticipation.
