OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
The consideration of Fear seems to have a special appeal for the Benson Bros. Only the other day did Robert Hugh write a clever and hauntingly horrible story round it, and now here is Arthur Christopher discoursing at large upon the same theme in Where No Fear Was (Smith, Elder). It is a book that you will hardly expect me to criticise. One either likes those gentle monologues of Mr. Benson or is impatient under them—and in any case the comments of a third party would be superfluous. Personally, I should call this one of the most charming of those many hortatory volumes that have come from his prolific pen; he has a subject that interests him, and is naturally therefore at his best in speaking of it. Many kinds of fear are treated in the book—those common to us all in childhood and youth and age; and there are chapters dedicated to men and women who have notably striven with and overcome the dragon—Johnson and Charlotte Brontë and Carlyle, and that friend of his, John Sterling, whose letter from his death-bed the author quotes and rightly calls "one of the finest human documents." So now you see what kind of book it is, and whether you yourself are likely to respond to its appeal. It will, I am firmly persuaded, bring encouragement to many and add to the already large numbers who owe a real debt of gratitude to the writer. Somewhere he has a passing reference to the time when first he began to receive letters from unknown correspondents. It set me thinking that it was no slight achievement to have said so many human and helpful things so unpriggishly. And certainly no one could call Where No Fear Was a pedantic work; its qualities of gentle humour and, above all, of sincerity absolve it from this charge and should commend it even to those who, as a rule, suffer counsel unwillingly.
Forrard, so to speak, in Mr. Cutcliffe Hyne's latest book you shall discover the three redoubtable stokers from whom it derives its title of Firemen Hot (Methuen). Combining the stedfast affection and loyalty of the Three Musketeers or the imperishable soldiers of Mr. Kipling with a faculty, when planning an escapade, for faultless English, only equalled by that of the flustered client explaining what has happened to the lynx-eyed sleuth, they are as stout a trio as ever thrust coal into a furnace or fist into a first mate's jaw. English, American and Scotch (and this would seem to be another injustice to the Green Island), in many ports and on many seas they have many wild yet not wicked adventures, knowing, with an instinctive delicacy born perhaps of the perusal of monthly magazines, where (even whilst crossing it) to draw the line. Aft, you shall come across once more the evergreen Captain Kettle, with his sartorial outfit unimpaired, his endless tobacco reserves not withered by a single leaf from their former glory. About wind-jammers and tramp-steamers and the harbours of all the world the author writes familiarly as usual, and has several ingenious plots to unfold, together with one or two that are not so good; and I suppose that the whisky drunk in the pages of Firemen Hot would float a small battleship, and the men laid out with lefts to the jaw, if set end to end, stretch from Hull to Plymouth Docks. I sometimes wonder whether Mr. Cutcliffe Hyne ever in an idle hour picks up a book by Mr. Conrad, and, if so, what he thinks of it.
I confess to being both weary and a little sceptical of heroines (in novels) who leap from the obscurity of mountain glens to fame and a five-figure income as dancers. The latest example is the young person who fills the title rôle in Belle Nairn (Melrose), and of her I must say that she displays almost all the faults of her kind. She certainly did carry on! On the first page she ran away from the humble cot of her virtuous parents to seek the protection of an aunt whom she supposed (I could not discover on what grounds) to be wealthy. However, so far from this, the aunt turned out to be even worse-housed than the parents, and in point of fact to keep what you might call a gambling-cot on her side of the mountains, where a select circle met to drink smuggled spirits and entertain themselves in other ways that are at least sufficiently indicated in the text. So Belle shook off the dust of the aunt also; and soon afterwards found herself in an open boat, which was run down by the yacht of some real live lords, to one of whom she made violent eyes; at the same time giving an estimate of her social position that went considerably beyond what was warranted by the facts. It was about here that I found that my credulity with regard to Belle was becoming over-taxed, though it may be that Mr. Roy Meldrum, her creator, believed in her; he has at least a solemnity and sincerity of style that carries him, apparently unwitting, through every peril of the grotesque. Of course Belle comes to town, smashes all booking records at the Basilica, and establishes herself as the idol of society. Later on, I regret to add, she becomes, so to speak, tinged with wine. Perhaps this unfortunate failing is the most credible thing about her. So, while I envy those readers who will doubtless follow her progress with delicious thrills, I can only repeat that it left me entirely unconvinced.
If I had to classify Oh, Mr. Bidgood (Lane), then I should call it a confused comedy, but I should want to add that Mr. Peter Blundell writes with such delightful irresponsibility that the confusion does not make much difference. To explain exactly what occurred during the voyage of the Susan Dale from Ceylon until she was "in distress" off the Borneo coast is not within my scope of intellect, but I can draw up a short list of her passengers (she was not supposed to carry any). I shall give Mr. Todd pride of place, partly because he owned her, but chiefly because sea-sickness incited him to deeds of gallantry. Then there were two skittish nurses, who got on board because one of them knew the second engineer; there was Colonel Tingle (swashbuckler); Señor Canaba (scamp), who had bribed both the captain and the chief engineer (Mr. Bidgood); and lastly a brace of crafty Malays, who were the second mate's contribution to the batch, and made a very reluctant appearance upon the scene. Quite as important, however, as this human freight was Susan's cargo of five hundred kegs of gunpowder, shipped as pickled pork, and a wonderful picture which at one time Mr. Bidgood was induced to wear (it was unframed) as extra underclothing. This expedient was not devised to prevent him from catching cold, but to save the picture from being stolen. Indeed, if anyone or anything had to be protected, Bidgood, for better or worse, undertook the responsibility. A more engaging old ruffian I have seldom encountered; among all the philanderings, conspiracies and mutinies of this wild voyage he remains a master of volcanic versatility. And his humour is of the right Jacobs brand.
The really stupid thing about Mr. Fergus Rowley was that he had never been to see The Great Adventure. That popular play must have been running for a considerable while (and the story appeared in book-form of course much earlier) before he decided to "fake" a suicide from the deck of the liner Transella and leave his large possessions to an unknown and penniless nephew. It Will Be All Right (Hutchinson) is the sanguine title which Mr. Tom Gallon has given to his latest novel; but whether he refers merely to Mr. Rowley's optimism or to the further possibility of his readers sharing that gentleman's ignorance of current drama, is more than I can say. Anyhow, Mr. Rowley disappeared, and his nephew succeeded to an estate largely impoverished by the depredations of Gabriel Thurston, a fraudulent solicitor and unmitigated rogue after Mr. Gallon's own heart (and mine). Meanwhile, Mr. Rowley was reduced to playing butler in his own house and thereby saving some of the most precious of his curios from the double waste of a spendthrift heir and an unscrupulous lawyer. There was also—need I mention it?—a Circe in the case. It Will Be All Right is an exercise in the picaresque school, lacking none of the author's usual raciness and vigour; but, if at the end we find Mr. Fergus Rowley still unable to reinstate himself, and left with no better consolation than the "Heigho" of his famous great-uncle Anthony, the fault, I feel, was his own. He ought to have looked in at the Kingsway Theatre and provided himself with the indispensable mole.
