OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
When Hargrave Ladd, who was a solicitor in a very fair way of business, with an agreeable but unemotional wife, happened to be getting into an omnibus at the moment when Stella Rayne fell off the top of it, he unconsciously put himself in the way of a lot of bother. Naturally, as a gentleman and the male protagonist of a novel—Let Be (Methuen)—he could do no less than pick the girl out of the mud and see her home in a cab. Whether, quite strictly speaking, he need have called next day to see how she was getting over the accident is another matter. Certainly his interfering aunt, Mrs. Dering, was of the opinion that Hargrave, as a married man, was displaying an excess of courtesy towards the pretty tumbler. As for Miss Sybil Campbell Lethbridge, who has written the tale, she gives no indication of her views one way or the other. Indeed this attitude of humorous tolerance for humanity is Miss Lethbridge's most striking characteristic. It is at once a source of strength and weakness to the book, making, on the one hand, for the reality of the characters, and, on the other, for a certain non-conductiveness of atmosphere that robs their emotions of warmth. Anyhow, the inevitable happens, and Hargrave falls in love with Stella, who in turn reciprocates his passion up to almost the last page in the book, when, having come to the edge of the precipice and made every preparation for her leap into the gulf of elopement, she does a mental quick-change and walks away as the contented betrothed of Another. So Hargrave, making the best of a good job, rejoins Mrs. H.; and one may suppose that, if any more distressed damsels fall off omnibuses in his presence, he will prudently "let be." You may think with me that this abrupt finish lessens the effect of an otherwise well-written and entertaining story.
Miss Muriel Hine in The Individual (Lane), essaying a problem novel, does not disdain the old-fashioned way of the woven plot and the dramatic incident. Her hero, Orde Taverner, surgeon by trade and eugenist by profession, falls in love with Elizma, a Cornish beauty and rare fiddler. His inquiries as to her eugenical fitness having been answered satisfactorily but inaccurately, he marries, to find that Elizma's mother really died insane. His principles conquer his desire for children, and his decision is communicated to the fiery Elizma, who, fierce maternalist that she is and coming of a wild stock that never stuck at anything, undertakes a desperate flirtation by way of solving the difficulty in her own heroic way—at least you will certainly make this kind of a guess, but on investigation you may find that you've been wrong! Happily in the end a deathbed confession proves the second version of her birth as inaccurate as the first. She really comes of quite untainted stock, so the eugenist is satisfied and husband and wife reconciled. That is to say the author runs away from her problem, which was perhaps, all things considered, the wisest thing to do. She has some eye for character and has made a good thing of her Elizma, but has let herself scatter her energies over a team too large to be driven with a sure hand. And why, oh why did she drag in the War? Or call her butler Puffles? But she keeps the interest of her story going, and you mustn't skip or you may be set off on a hopelessly wrong tack.
So great is my admiration for the humorous gifts of Mr. William Caine and so strong my gratitude to him for such books as Boom and Old Enough to Know Better, that I have decided to erase from my memory with all possible speed his latest effort, Bildad the Quill-Driver (Lane.) A man with so many bull's-eyes to his credit may be forgiven an occasional miss; and, to be candid, Bildad the Quill-Driver seems to me to come nowhere near the target. Most of Mr. Caine's work would be the better for a certain amount of condensation, but this is the only occasion on which he has really lost control of his pen. He has had the unfortunate idea of writing a comic Arabian Nights in close imitation of the style of the original translation, even to the insertion of short poems at every possible opportunity. Now, this is one of those ideas which at first blush would seem to contain all the elements of delightful humour; but it has the deadly flaw that it involves a monotony which becomes after a few pages more than irritating. For a while the novelty is entertaining, and then the reader becomes crushed by the realisation that he has got to rely for his amusement on the same sort of joke repeated over and over again for more than three hundred pages. And, once that happens, the doom of the book is sealed, for the adventures of Bildad are not in themselves diverting—his love-affair with the giantess is as unfunny a thing as ever I yawned over—and if you cease to chuckle at the burlesque pomposity of the style there is nothing left. There are some things which do not lend themselves to sustained parody, and the manner of the Arabian Nights is one of them. But, as I say, I am not going to allow this book to shake my opinion that Mr. Caine is one of our most engaging humorists.
How a Prussian St. George would have done it.
I recommend, absolutely without reserve, a war book entitled Day by Day with the Russian Army (Constable). It is written by Professor Bernard Pares, the Official British Observer with the Russian Armies in the Field, and is the real thing. Although incidentally it is to be praised as a modest and lucid piece of writing, well in keeping with the character of an author whose habit of viewing an action from the most dangerous, because the most interesting, point can be discovered only by reading between the lines, primarily it is to be prescribed as a sovereign tonic against German-made depression. The writer, after being present at the conquest of Galicia and the triumphant advance to the top of the Carpathians, after witnessing much of the historical Russian retreat under pressure of overwhelming artillery superiority, and after conversing freely with his friends of all ranks on different sectors of the Front whilst offering greetings in the name of their English comrades in arms, announces finally, in a wholly satisfactory fashion, his unalterable conviction as to the unqualified supremacy of our Allies when on anything like equal terms with their opponents as regards munitions of war. And that is a matter which, though never in doubt, it is pleasant to hear again in tones of authority at a time when we believe the Russian lack of supplies is at last being made good. The evidence is the more complete because not only do we learn of the interrogation of many prisoners, but because a long extract from the diary of one of them, an Austrian officer, is included, to point the difference in spirit between the two armies. The demoralisation of the Austrian forces, even when advancing, is so strikingly presented that one cannot doubt their dependence on German domination and German batteries to hold them together at all. Although Professor Pares attaches several excellent maps, he is not really much concerned with questions of strategy, but has devoted himself to just two points—moral and munitions.
I am afraid that Mrs. Hodgson Burnett is in a little danger of overdoing it. She knows (who better?) the briskness of the popular demand for long-lost heirs; and she may well have argued that the longer he has been lost, the more squalid his present environment, and the more brilliant his heritage, the more assured would be the heir's welcome. Perhaps indeed this may be so in America; but for this side, as I say, I have my doubts. I daresay your own intuition will tell you that the hero of The Lost Prince (Hodder and Stoughton) is a prince who has been lost. In fact so effectually had the branch of the regal house to which Prince Ivor belonged been mislaid that the story opens upon him dwelling in a London slum with no companions but a mysterious father and a crippled playfellow (called The Rat). All sorts of mysterious things are constantly happening just out of sight; and presently the dynastic intrigues of Mrs. Burnett launch the two boys upon a secret journey through Europe, to convey to a number of pleasantly melodramatic conspirators the message that "The Lamp is Lighted!" As their object is expressly stated to be protection for a small principality, the fact that the interviews include one with Emperor of Austria has in these days a quaintly anachronistic effect, and at least serves to emphasise the neutral origin of the story. However, they are of course successful; and in the last chapter Prince Ivor manages to be enormously astonished at finding that the mysterious monarch of Samavia, for whom he has been working, is none other than his own father—an obvious fact that, with truly royal tactfulness, he had contrived to ignore throughout the story. My advice to the author is to write up her villains (at present they haven't a chance) and make the whole thing into a film play. The wanderings of the two boys offer a fine opportunity for scenic variety; while the sentiment is of precisely the nature to be stimulated by a pianoforte accompaniment. As a three-reel exclusive, in short, I can fancy The Lost Prince entering triumphantly into his appropriate kingdom.
"Unfurnished Room to Let in Clyde Road; quiet house; convenience for washing once a week if necessary; rent 3s."—Hastings and St. Leonards Observer.
It sounds dirt-cheap.