Ice in the Bedroom

Freddie Widgeon is in the chips— or expects to be very shortly. After months of slaving in a solicitor's office, he can now count the days to when he will be able to strike off the shackles of Messrs. Shoesmith, Shoes mith, Shoesmith and Shoe-smith for ever. The author of Freddie's gratifying swing of fortune is the American, Thomas G. Molloy. With philanthropic beneficence he recently let Freddie have some Silver River oil stock for £1,000. The deal took every penny Freddie could raise, but the certainty of being able to sell his holding within a month for a cool £10,000 made an instant appeal to his quick intelligence. Indeed, it was a point Mr. Moiloy was most careful to stress when, with fatherly concern, he explained the mysteries of high finance to this young man to whose face he had taken so firm a fancy. Thus it is a gay and confident Widgeon that we meet in the opening pages of this uproarious novel. And though poor Freddie has less and less occasion to feel gay and confident as the story advances, the reader's delight never falters. Ice In The Bedroom just romps along from one sparkling situation to the next.