Kossovia

FRIDAY'S BUSINESS--Maurice Baring--Knopf ($2.35).

Few writers in any country can be so urbanely charming as Maurice Baring when he sets his mind to it. Some of his books have been more ambitious than Friday's Business but none is more delightful. A modern Prince Otto without the Presbyterian implications, this tale of an imaginary European country is so detachedly and lightly told that even its theatrically tragic end brings only smiles of applause.

When Patrick met Countess Marie at his father's place in Ireland they were much taken with each other, became engaged under her mother's unsuspecting nose. When she went back to Kossovia, Patrick followed to clinch matters. Arrived in Novograd, he found Marie's return had been delayed; meantime he discovered old schoolmates there and began to enjoy Kossovian society. Beautiful Eurydice had begun to attract him even before his airplane crash; afterwards, he had no eyes for anyone else and could not remember ever having seen Marie before. But Eurydice, having more political fish to fry, gave Patrick only cool encouragement. When the fish were well cooked and the government overturned, Patrick was hit on the head in a riot and found he remembered Marie very well. But before they had time for a happy ending, Patrick's old Etonian spirit got him into a last and fatal scrape.

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