OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
Mr. Maurice Hewlett's latest volume, Frey and His Wife (Ward, Lock), suffers from the defect of being in reality a long short story puffed out to the dimensions of a short novel; and in consequence, even with large type—most grateful to the reviewing eye; Heaven forbid I should complain of that!—and a blank page between each chapter, it has considerable difficulty in filling its volume. It is a tale of antique Iceland and Norway. The first part, which is really padding and has nothing whatever to do with Frey or his matrimonial affairs, treats of one Ogmund, who was called Ogmund Dint, for the very good reason that he had been literally dinted as to the skull. It was done by a gentleman named Halward. Everybody naturally expected Ogmund to dint back; but he was something of a conscientious objector in the matter of face-to-face dinting, and being too proud for vulgar conflict he bided his time till he could cut Halward's throat with the minimum of personal inconvenience. End of padding and appearance of Frey. There is a picture of Frey on the cover by Mr. Maurice Greiffenhagen. You know already what the Greiffenhagen vikings are like—high-coloured, well developed and (if I dare say it) sometimes a trifle wooden. Frey indeed looked so very wooden that in my foolish ignorance I was tempted to protest. But the astonishing fact is that Frey was not only wooden in appearance, but in actuality. How then could he have for wife a slip of a sixteen-year-old maid that you may have met before in Mr Hewlett's romances? This however is the real story, which (pardon me) I do not mean to tell. If it is no tremendous matter, it will at least please an idle hour, which will be almost time enough for you to enjoy every word of it.
These Lynnekers (Cassell) is yet another example of the "family" novel whose increasing popularity I have lately noticed. It is a clever and interesting story—the name of Mr. J. D. Beresford assured me in advance that it would be—and, when it is finished, the characters go on living and speaking in one's mind, which is, I suppose, a sound proof of their vitality. Yet in a sense vitality was just what most of the Lynneker tribe chiefly lacked. They were an ancient and honourable house, country-born to the third and fourth generation, and all of them far too conventional and apathetic and fuss-hating ever to follow any but the line of least resistance. All of them, that is, except Dickie, who was the youngest of his father's numerous progeny, and in more senses than one a sport. How Dickie released himself from the shackles of family tradition, how he grew up and bustled things about, and generally made a real instead of a conventional success—this is the matter of the tale. All the characters are well-drawn, and about Dickie himself there is a compelling virility that rushes you along in his rather tempestuous wake. I am not sure that I altogether believe in his attitude towards the question of sex. He appeared to think generally too little, and on occasions remarkably too much, about it. Also the painful detail with which the author lingers over the death of old Canon Lynneker (that attractive and human figure of ecclesiastical gentility) roused me to resentment. When will our novelists learn that, as regards the physical side of mortality, reticence is by far the better part of realism? This marred a little my pleasure in a story for whose quality and workmanship I should else have nothing but praise.
In To Ruhleben—and Back (Constable), Mr. Geoffrey Pyke has such a fine yarn to spin of his foolhardy proceeding in walking right into the eagle's beak as correspondent for an English newspaper, at the end of September, 1914, and (after some months' solitary confinement in Berlin and his transfer to the civilian prisoners' miserable internment camp at Ruhleben) walking right out of it again, that one can forgive him for spreading his elbows for a piece of expansive writing when he was safe home. To tell the truth he writes extraordinarily well; one's only feeling is that the simplest idiom would be best for such an amazing narrative, and Mr. Pyke is too young and too clever (both charmingly venial faults) to write simply. When I tell you that this persistent youngster, hardly out of his teens, patiently worked out a plan of escape which depended for its efficacy on an optical illusion (the precise secret of which he does not give away), and with his friend, Mr. Edward Falk, a District Commissioner from Nigeria, part tramped, part bummel-zugged the two hundred and fifty miles or so from Ruhleben to the Dutch frontier, disguised as tourists, with a kit openly bought at Wertheim's, living, when marketing became too dangerous, on potatoes and other roots burglariously digged from the fields at dark, you will gather that this is some adventure. But I am afraid the publication will not assist any other prisoners at Ruhleben to escape. It is pleasant to note that the Commandant of the Camp, Von Taubb, was a sportsman and none too thickly tarred with the brush of Prussian efficiency; and that the Governor, Graf Schwerin, threatened resignation if a no-smoking order, sent from headquarters, were insisted on. Indeed, the fact that our young friend was not shot out of hand must stand as a small entry on the credit side, not inconveniently crowded, of Prussia's account in the recording angel's ledger.
In A Frenchwoman's Notes on the War (Constable) Mademoiselle Claire de Pratz discourses pleasantly and patriotically of sundry effects of the War on French life and character. She is excusably proud of the part which her fellow-countrywomen have played. The women of France seem to have accomplished to admiration what we in England are only beginning to understand. Quietly, almost automatically, Frenchwomen have slipped into the men's vacant places and carried on the work of the country. The industry and resourcefulness of the average Frenchwoman are proverbial, but the author ascribes the peculiar readiness they have displayed at the present time largely to compulsory military service, as well as to the Frenchman's habit of discussing his work with his wife and daughters and awakening their interest in it. Thus, when the local paperhanger was called to the colours his wife repapered the author's country cottage "quite as efficiently"; and thrilling indeed is the account of the gallantry of one intrepid woman who, when the German Staff entered an important town (from which the Mayor and Municipal Council had fled), resisted their demand for a large war ransom. Widow of a former Senator of the Department, she "alone remained, the sole representative of officialdom." "We want to see the Mayor," said the invaders. "Le Maire? C'est moi!" was the reply. "Then kindly direct us to some members of the Municipal Council." "Le Conseil Municipal? C'est moi!" We are told that the Teutonic officials were amazed—and no wonder. But in the end they were forced to go without the money, and the town and its defender were left in peace. I commend A Frenchwoman's Notes on the War as a most inspiriting record of what women can do; though the author magnanimously admits that, "for the callings of the coal-heaver and the furniture-remover," men, even in France, are still indispensable.
