Monsieur Coumbes, portefaix a Marseille, n'a que deux passions dans la vie: son cabanon de Montredon, entoure d'un coin de jardin ou le mistral ne laisse rien pousser, et la peche aux poissons de roche pour la bouillabaisse. Un soir, il entend des hurlements dans l'appartement au-dessus du sien. M. Coumbes est egoiste et insensible mais pas assez pour laisser se commettre un assassinat. Il intervient et empeche Pierre Manas de pendre sa femme Millette.

Alexandre Dumas (dit aussi Alexandre Dumas pere) est un ecrivain francais ne le 24 juillet 1802 a Villers-Cotterets (Aisne) et mort le 5 decembre 1870 a Puys, pres de Dieppe (Seine-Maritime). Il est le fils de Thomas Alexandre Davy de La Pailleterie (ne a Saint-Domingue, actuelle Haiti) dit le general Dumas, et le pere des ecrivains Henry Bauer et Alexandre Dumas (1824-1895) dit Dumas fils, auteur de La Dame aux camelias.

A London fog, solid, substantial, yellow as an old dog's tooth or a jaundiced eye. You could not look through it, nor yet gaze up and down it, nor over it; and you only thought you saw it. The eye became impotent, untrustworthy; all senses lay fallow except that of touch; the skin alone conveyed to you with promptness and no incertitude that this thing had substance.

A blurring rain fell upon Paris that day. A rain so fine and cold that it penetrated the soles of men's shoes and their hearts alike a dispiriting drizzle through which the pale acrid smoke of innumerable wood fires faltered upward from the clustering chimney-pots only to be rent into fragments and beaten down upon the glistening tiles of the mansard roofs.

The story is a blending of the romance and adventure of the middle ages with nineteenth century men and women; and they are creations of flesh and blood, and not mere pictures of past centuries. The story is about Jack Winthrop, a newspaper man. Mr. MacGrath's finest bit of character drawing is seen in Hillars, the broken down newspaper man, and Jack's chum.

A gay romance of Washington today, carried off with admirable dash and spirit, and with just enough tragedy to give point to the comic touch. The hero masquerades as a coachman, takes service in his lady's livery, becomes involved in a diplomatic intrigue, and altogether has the liveliest kind of a time.

The story is reminiscent of Stevenson's "Prince Otto" in a certain airy persiflage and genial cynicism and in the comic opera quality of the little Continental kingdom that is the scene of its remarkable plot; it strongly suggests Anthony Hope's "The Prisoner of Zenda" in the kidnaping of certain important characters and in the portraiture of the youthful hero who is an American.

This novel about China and the South Sea Islands is a thrilling character-story of literary excellence, which will further endear Mr. MacGrath to his widespread audience. This novel was made into a movie.