This is all mildly attractive if only from the vivacity of its
telling; but I confess to having felt a mild wonder whether a child's
book had not got on to my table by error--when the grown-ups suddenly
began to carry on in a way that placed all such doubts at rest. There
was, for example, a Russian lady, godmother of _Patuffa_, who escaped
from somewhere and established herself, with others of her kind, in an
attic in Coptic Street. My welcome for this interesting fugitive was to
some extent shaken by a realisation that she was (so to speak) a refugee
from the other side and, in a sense, a spiritual ancestress of
Bolshevism. Miss HARRADEN would however object, and justly, that the
clean-purposed conspirators of the earlier revolution had little in
common with the unsavoury individuals who at present obscure the Russian
dawn. Soon after this, _Patuffa's_ papa begins to go quite dreadfully
off the rails, even to the extent of wishing to elope with her governess
and eventually losing all his money and shooting himself. There was also
a famous violinist--well, you can see already that _Patuffa's_ vernal
experiences were on generous lines.
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