THE HUMAN IMAGE

The author of Netel on the Lake with a second authentic but unattractive account of sorry, shabby lives -- this time in the Boston rooming house run by Mrs. Johnson, during the first World War. Gentle-spoken, generous-hearted Mrs. Johnson is always short on rent money, on getting feed and clothes for her two boys. She takes a job in ogling, pennypinshing, Mr. Appleby's print shop, and Mrs. Appleby leaves him on her account. Mr. Appleby moves into Mrs. Johnson's house, estensibly to protect her, actually to forward his affair. Then he gets money from Mr. Biby to start a paper, rooks his benefactor when the paper fails, quarrels with Mrs. Johnson and turns to a young girl for understanding, while Mrs. Johnson, bewildered and upset, moves out and goes to live with the Bibys... The littleness of little people, in sharp rather than sympathetic detail, with little to recommend it to the general reader.