THE GIFT OF ABOU HASSAN

By FRANCIS PERRY ELLIOTT

Illustrated by Hanson Booth.

This is absolutely the cleverest, catchiest book of the season, the Arabian Nights up-to-date in modern New York, a rapid, rollicking romance of love and laughter, fun and absurdity, all told in the most delightfully whimsical manner imaginable. A young club-man, whose distinguishing characteristic is the possession of unblushing audacity and nerve, sees a pretty girl outside the antique-shop of a Persian dealer, to which the girl's aunt has come in quest of a wonderful rug—and then the fun begins and never stops.

For Abou Hassan's shop holds a rug more wonderful than the world has known in many centuries: a magic rug—put foot upon it and one can't be seen or heard. And the hero's love-making, his masquerade as another man, the complications for which the magic rug is responsible, these make a steady stream of comedy that brings laughter to your lips and tears to your eyes while you are held entranced by the mirthful medley of mysterious events that follow.