OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
At this date "The Junior Sub" fortunately needs no introduction to a public that has long gathered him and his to its appreciative heart. I should not like to guess how many people read and enjoyed The First Hundred Thousand; they all, and more, will delight in the appearance of Carrying On (BLACKWOOD), in which the exploits of the famous regiment, of Major Wagstaffe and Captain Bobby Little and the rest of them are continued. What the precise war position of IAN HAY may be by now I am unaware, but I should emphatically suggest his appointment to the post of Official Cheerer-Up. Perhaps (how shall I put it?) the eye-pieces of the writer's mask are a trifle too rose-coloured for strict realism; great-hearted gentlemen as we know our heroes to be, are they always quite so merry and bright as here? One can but hope so. In any case, as special propaganda on the part of the O.C.U., the stories could hardly be bettered. One, called "The Push that Failed," I would order to be read aloud to the workers in every munition factory in the land; its heartening tale of how the British people had, to the paralysed astonishment of Brother Bosch, "delivered the goods" to such effect that his projected spectacular attack under the eyes of WILLIAM the Worst was smashed before it began, is of a kind to strengthen the most weary arm. While I was yet upon the final page the bells in a famous abbey tower close by broke into grateful clamour for the news of victory. But IAN HAY does not wait on victory; he has his joy-bells ringing always in our hearts.
The Tree of Heaven (CASSELL) spread its friendly branches over a pleasant corner of a roomy Hampstead garden. Matter-of-fact Anthony, the timber merchant, always would insist that it was a mere common ash; but the others, Frances, and the children, Dorothy, Michael, Nicky and adopted Veronica, knew better, as also, no doubt, did Jane-Pussy and her little son, Jerry, who was Nicky's most especial pal. Miss MAY SINCLAIR, without being a conscienceless sentimentalist, does us the fine service of reminding us that the world of men is not all drab ugliness, but that there are beautiful human relationships and unselfish characters, and wholesome training which justifies itself in the day of trial. She divides her charming chronicle into three parts—Peace, The Vortex, and Victory. The first deals with the childhood of the happy brood of Anthony and Frances, delicate studies subtly differentiated. Even the little cats have their astonishing individuality, and I don't envy anyone who can read of Jerry's death and Nicky's grief without a gulp. The Vortex is—no, not the War; that comes later—but the trials of a world which tests adolescence, a world of suffrage rebellions, of Futuristic art and morals. Then the real vortex of the War, the Victory which means ready (or difficult, unready) sacrifice and death for the boys and their friends and as great a sacrifice and as cruel a thing as death for the others, the women and the elders.... A novel, which is much more than a novel, packed with beauty and sincerity, setting forth its tragedy without false glamour or shallow consolations.
Since it is natural to expect that a much-heralded book will fail, when it does eventually appear, to fulfil the promise of its publishers, it is the more pleasant to find oneself agreeing with Messrs. HODDER AND STOUGHTON that bashfulness on their part would have been out of place in regard to Mr. JAMES W. GERARD'S memoirs, My Four Years in Germany. As read in their completed and collected form these papers are not only, as one could foresee, of historic importance, but they are moreover capital reading. There is a world of unaffected geniality and humour about them that forms a most admirable complement to such serious matters as the protracted negotiations over the U-boat campaign, or the now famous incriminating telegram addressed by the ALL-HIGHEST to President WILSON in the days before the Huns had quite decided with what lies to defend the indefensible. This document is reproduced in facsimile as the egregious sender of telegrams wrote it for Mr. GERARD to transmit, and is one link more in the thrice-forged chain of evidence. But even stronger witness to German guilt is to be found in the series of minor corroborations appearing incidentally in the course of Mr. GERARD'S narrative, whether the author is pretending to be in awe of Prussian Court Etiquette, or openly laughing at the Orders of the Many Coloured Eagles, or simply detailing his work at Ruhleben and the other prison camps. His devotion there has earned a gratitude throughout this country that it would be mere presumption to try to put into words.
Those of us who have loitered with Mr. DE VERE STACPOOLE by blue lagoons and silent pools know that he is a master of atmosphere, and so he proves himself again in The Starlit Garden (HUTCHINSON), though it takes him some time to get there. When a young American finds himself the guardian of an Irish flapper—a distant relation—and comes over to take her back with him to the States, it does not require much perspicacity to guess what will happen. Phyl Berknowles strongly objects to the intrusion of Richard Pinckney into the glorious muddle of her Irish ménage, and irritates him so successfully that he returns in a considerable tantrum to America, leaving her with some friends in Dublin. So far the tale is lively enough, but not until Phyl feels the call of her blood and goes to stay with her relatives in Charleston does the author find scope for his peculiar charm. Then we get a most delightful picture of a starlit garden in the south of America, where Phyl's experiences, without placing a tiresome strain upon our powers of belief, produce a sensation at once romantic and unusual. Memories of the past hang over this garden, and although Mr. STACPOOLE'S attempt to reconcile the period of which he writes with the years that are gone is not uniformly successful I am cordially glad that he made it.
The publishers of Mrs. ALICE PERRIN'S new volume, Tales that are Told (SKEFFINGTON), appear to be anxious that the public should have no hesitations on the score of measure supplied, as they explain that the chief of the tales is "a short novel of over 20,000 words." I am content to take their word for the figure, but I agree that they were well advised to focus attention upon "Gift of God," which, whatever its length, is an admirable and distinguished piece of writing. The subject of it is the old question of mixed-marriage, but treated from a new aspect. Kudah Bux (the Gift in question) is the son of an adoring Mohamedan father; he goes to England for education in the law, and there falls in love with and marries the brainless daughter of a London landlady. He is a very human and appealing figure. The debacle that follows his return to India with so impossible a bride is told in a way that convinces. Here Mrs. PERRIN is at her best. Some of the shorter tales also succeed very happily in conveying that peculiar Simla-by-South-Kensington atmosphere of retired Anglo-Indian society which she suggests with such intimate understanding. But, to be honest, the others (with the exception of one quaint little comedy of a canine ghost) are but indifferent stuff, too full of snakes and hidden treasure and general tawdriness—the kind of Orientalism, in fact, that one used to associate chiefly with the Earl's Court Exhibition. Mrs. PERRIN must not mingle her genuine native goods with such Brummagem ware.
My idea is that when Mr. H.C. BAILEY called his latest story The Young Lovers (METHUEN) he was doing it something less than justice. For the width and variety of the plot make it far more than a mere love-tale. Arma virique are quite as much Mr. BAILEY'S theme as Cupid, who indeed makes a rather belated appearance at the tag end. Before that we have a vast deal of agreeable adventuring. The scene is set in the period of the Peninsular War; all the characters, lovers, parents and hangers-on, are more or less involved in the fluctuating fortunes of my Lord WELLINGTON. There are spies of both sides, intrigues, abductions and what not. Mr. BAILEY has a pretty touch for such matters; his people move with an air; and, if at times their speech seems a trifle over-burnished, dulness is far from them. Moreover, the incidents of the campaign give scope for some vivid descriptions of war and battles, as such were in the old days before Mars put off his gold lace and sacrificed the picturesque. Sometimes, on the other hand, it is the similarity of conditions then and now that will strike you. For example, the passage telling how, despite apparent inactivity and home prognostications of stalemate, the confidence of the Army grew from day to day—impossible not to see the very obvious parallel there. In fine, Mr. BAILEY has given us another brisk and engaging romance, which, if it is not quite the kind you might expect from its title, is something a good deal better worth reading.
"Fort Worth, Texas.—Poolville, Parker county, near here, has raised $1,246.50 as a reward for the delivery of the German emperor into the hands of the American authorities."—Buffalo Courier.
On reading this item HINDENBURG is reported to have said that if Poolville would make it even money he would think about it.
