various contributors

“ For my part I vastly prefer the Irish, men, women and children, in Ireland to all or any of their relatives and friends elsewhere; for when they leave their island their humour runs to seed and loses that detachment and delicacy which constitute its unique charm. ”

“ Mackenzie is an overlord of words, old and new, bending them to strange an unexpected uses, yet always avoiding affectation by the sheer vitality of his strength. As for th ematter of these first chapters, one might say that nothing whatever happens in them. They are an epic of adolescence wherein growth is the only movement. Events are for the second half of the volume. Here Michael has come down from Oxford, and has set himself to find and rescue by marriage the girl Lily, whom (you remember) he loved as a boy, and who has since drifted into the underworld. ”

“ He carries no lens and no revolver. Flashes of psychological insight are more to him than a meticulous examination of the window-sill. When the motive is instantly transparent, why bother about the murderer's boots? ”

“ In the circumstances it is perhaps fortunate for the reverend sleuth that he nearly always happens to be in either at the death or immediately after it, instead of being summoned a day or two later when the grotesque circumstances of the crime have baffled the panting ingenuity of Scotland Yard. ”

“ On the whole, however, she has a fine understanding of boy-nature, and if there are some improbabilities in these ingenious stories, she is armed with the crushing retort that the chief characteristic of any properly equipped boy is his improbability. ”