OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
Mr. H. A. Vachell is to be congratulated upon having evolved in The Triumph of Tim (Smith, Elder) one idea that is as ingenious as it is novel. Tim, who had no legal right to any particular name, started life as a blameless schoolboy under the designation of Tim White. Subsequent events having necessitated his retirement to the New World, he began again there as Tim Green, and so on, through a period of prosperity as Brown, one of adversity as Black, into the tranquil conclusion of Grey. Of course this did make it a little confusing for the other characters, one of whom (not without justice) called him "parti-coloured." Also, while providing a pleasant variety of interest, it goes rather against one's chance of forming any definite idea of Tim as a coherent being. But, despite this, Mr. Vachell's longest novel is in many ways his best yet. There are obviously personal touches in his pictures of Californian life; and he seems equally at home in dealing with every phase of his hero's chameleon career. The other characters also are well drawn, notably Ivy, the unrepentant little wanton through whom came Tim's first lapse in the colour scale. And the end, which restores him to England, home and unexpected fatherhood (unexpected, that is, to those whom familiarity with Mr. Vachell's methods had not kept on the watch for precisely this development), is both sincere and moving.
In choosing The Road to Nowhere (Allen and Unwin) as the title to his novel, Mr. Eric Leadbitter sounds, at any rate, a note of warning to those who like their heroes to repose in the last chapter upon a bed of roses. Joe, of Camberwell and very humble origin, has social ambitions and some natural aptitude for fulfilling them. He is an intriguing study, though I cannot believe in him as firmly as I can in his vulgar relations. That he may arrive at the point where the snares of wealth are to encompass him round about he is allowed to win a prize in the Calcutta Sweep, and then to have a successful flutter in options. In this way he wins his complete emancipation from Camberwell. The process is so absurdly easy that one imagines Mr. Leadbitter to have said to himself, "Money is not worth much, any way, so it doesn't matter how Joe gets it." As far as filthy lucre is concerned one can only commend this attitude, but unfortunately the reader may suspect that he also is the object of a certain measure of contempt on the part of the author. This suspicion, however, is not going to deter me from expressing my approval of the work of a writer who is more concerned with his main idea than with the method by which he gets to it. In the end I was left with a real admiration for his courage and ability.
Riches and Honour (Smith, Elder) tells of the kind of thing our Empire-builders had to face on the Gold Coast of a quarter-century ago. It is good for us to learn these things, and Mr. W. H. Adams' rather dry catalogue method of filling in the local colour seems to vouch for honest knowledge. The story, not in the least dry, is packed with adventure, rebel chiefs, fetishes and fevers, and a dash of love. It is Captain Tarleton, of H.M. Gold Coast Constabulary, whose riches and honour are in question. Eagerly expecting the death of a rotten brother and the pouching of a fat inheritance, he so allows this to prey on his mind that, when the great chance comes of an important cutting-out expedition of the kind for which he, keenest and most resourceful of soldiers and adored leader of his fearless Hausas, is widely famous, his nerve just goes to little bits. I suppose there are men who think it so desperately important to succeed to money they haven't earned that they go off their feed and throw aside habits of courage long fortified by rigorous self-discipline; but I must say it doesn't seem very convincing. But then the author may have met poor Tarleton in the flesh.
Josiah, head of the family whose name, Chapel, Mr. Miles Lewis has given to his South Wales story (Heinemann), realised quite suddenly in middle life that if he was ever to restore the fortunes of his house, then unhappily depressed, he must wake up and stir about a bit; must in fact seize fate and the world by the throat and demand his own. In this laudable intention he is entitled, I suppose, to one's sympathies, though it hardly seems necessary for him to have adopted the manners of a bear along with its strength; but when in the course of his wrestlings with destiny he descended to paltry sharp-practice over a business bargain, and Griff, his son, followed suit, one began to wonder whether, after all, the County would benefit much by the restoration of the old stock. Yet there was something likeable about Griff that made one at any rate half glad to see him back in the ancestral seat; but even then the marriage that put him there had a little too much the air of good strategy, though the author, it would seem, has no uneasiness in regard to these little meannesses of his heroes. This, however, may be a matter of taste; but there is less excuse for the way I in which he has cut his book up into two parallel stories which really have very little to connect them. He does tie them together after a fashion when he effects a reconciliation between father and son in the last chapter; but seeing that this is so long delayed, and results in a rather horrible anti-climax, there is not much gained. In spite of all these grumbles you are not to infer that there is nothing to appreciate in this book; there is much that is good, the minor characters being about the best of it.
"The parade on Tuesday, the 11th April, 1916, will be compulsory for all ranks stationed in Colombo. Only medical certificates will be accepted in lieu of absence. This will be a practice Ceremonial Parade. Officers will swear words."—The Ceylonese.
Very probably; but we don't think they ought to advertise it in advance.