Ecto-Pranks

TOPPER--Thorne Smith--McBride ($2). Cosmo Topper is a Better Babbitt of the East Orange, N. J., type, early thwarted into respectability by his dyspeptic wife and his commutation ticket. The fun starts when he buys the low-hum, nickel-plated car which carried sprightly George and Marion Kerby into the next world. Passing the tree where they came to grief, Topper is joined by spiritistic versions of the Kerbys, and during the adventures that follow he comes to love them as childish prankers. The belated release of Topper is rather pathetic, but mirth is the tale's mother element. Topper tight; Topper in the courtroom with the ghostly Kerbys pulling the judge's leg; the smoky lady in stepins whom none but Topper can understand; Topper sitting platonically in an ectoplasmic lap --out of such stuff is compounded a book to be hugged by bored suburbanites, occasional inebriates and all amateurs of good humor.