OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
When a story bears the attractive title of The House of Courage (DUCKWORTH); when it begins in the Spring of 1914 with a number of pleasantly prosperous people whose faith in the continuance of this prosperity is frequently emphasised ("as if they had a contract with God Almighty" is how an observant character phrases it); and when, in the first chapter, the hero has an encounter with two Germans in a Soho restaurant—well, it requires no great guessing to tell what will happen before we are through with it. And, in fact, Mrs. VICTOR RICKARD'S latest is yet another war-story; though with this novelty, that the hero's experiences of service are almost entirely gained in a German prison-camp. As perhaps I need not say, both divisions of the tale are admirably written. It is hardly the author's fault that the earlier half, with its pictures of a genial hunting society in County Cork, is distinctly more entertaining than the scenes of boredom and brutality at Crefeld, well-conveyed as these are and almost over-realistic and convincing. Inevitably too the scheme is one of incident rather than character. One has never any very serious doubt that in the long run the hero, Kennedy, will marry the girl of his choice, despite the fact of her engagement to the clearly unworthy Harrington. But as part of the long run was from Crefeld to the Dutch frontier, over every obstacle that you can imagine (and a few more, including an admirable thrill almost on the post), one is left with the comfortable feeling that the prize was well earned. You will rightly judge that most of The House of Courage is rather more frankly sensational than Mrs. RICKARD'S previous war-work; but it remains an excellent yarn.
When Esmé Hillier, possessed by The Imp (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), was only ten, in a fit of annoyance she pushed the hero (to whom she had had no previous introduction) into the sea. I have some sympathy with her energetic protest, for a Highland Chieftain even at the age of sixteen should know better than to row about in an open boat kissing a young lady. Esmé, a pained spectator, showed her public spirit by punishing his bad form, but in the act she sealed her own fate, for after this it was inevitable that they should ultimately marry each other, the girl of the kissing episode notwithstanding. The immediate incentive to their union, which was by the Scotch method, was that Esmé had applied mustard-plasters to a Cabinet Minister's person by affixing them to his dress-suit, and Tourntourq, the Chieftain, had nobly attempted to bear the blame. Though married in haste they did not wait for leisure before they repented, but commenced quarrelling at once, until Esmé, in order to test his love and that of an admirer who was helping to complicate matters, "bobbed" her hair and threw the severed tresses at her husband. After this they separated. Presently the War came, and the admirer, who was really quite a nice person, was killed, and Tourntourq, who was apparently a lunatic, though that is not stated in so many words, was blinded. It seems quite superfluous to add that Tourntourq wins the V.C. and recovers both sight and wife in the last chapter; but there are such good patches in the book that I cannot help hoping that some day WILSON MACNAIR will try her hand (I feel it is her hand) at another, which I shall really believe in all through.
Of late our costume-romancers have become strangely unprolific. So I was the more pleased to find Mrs. ALICE WILSON FOX bravely keeping the old flag flying with a story bearing the gallant title, Too Near the Throne (S.P.C.K.). I daresay its name may enable you to give a fairly shrewd guess at its plot. This is an agreeable affair of a maid, reputed Catholic heir to the English Crown, and used as pretext for an abortive rising against KING JAMES I. You can see that in practised hands (as here) and decorated with a pretty trimming of sentiment, abductions, witch-finding and other appropriate accessories, this furnishes a theme rich in romance. Perhaps I was a thought disappointed that more was not made of the actual conspiracy, and that, having started "too near the throne," the tale subsequently gave it so wide a berth. But this is no great fault. I can witness that Mrs. WILSON FOX has at least one essential quality of the historical novelist in her appreciation of picturesque raiment. Almost indeed she emulates those jewelled paragraphs in which the creator of Windsor Castle would fill half a chapter with a riot of sartorial coruscations. As a birthday present, say for an appreciative niece, I can think of few volumes whose welcome would be better assured.
Mr. JOHN MASEFIELD has brought together in St. George and the Dragon (HEINEMANN) a speech "given" by him in New York on last St. George's Day, and a lecture on The War and the Future which he delivered up and down America from January to August of last year. Since then many things have happened. But nothing has happened that can make Mr. MASEFIELD other than proud of the part he has played in explaining and glorifying his country's cause and commending it to the hearts and minds of all good Americans. I confess that when I took up the book and read the first few lines I was afraid that Mr. MASEFIELD had yielded to the temptation of delivering his speech in poetical prose of a faintly Biblical character, as thus: "Friends, for a long time I did not know what to say to you in this my second speaking here. I could fill a speech with thanks and praise—thanks for the kindness and welcome which have met me up and down this land wherever I have gone, and praise for the great national effort which I have seen in so many places and felt everywhere." Mr. MASEFIELD however soon abandoned this manner and made the rest of his way in a good solid pedestrian style. But he did not disdain to go so far in flattery of the Americans, his audience, as to use the word "gotten" for the past tense of the verb "to get."
There can be few Irishmen who look at their England with such affectionate eyes as Lord DUNSANY. Tales of War (FISHER UNWIN) is full of this sweet theme. The first of the tales is a fine story of the Daleswood men who, cut off from their supports and worried because there would be none left in their native village to carry on the Daleswood breed, were for sending out their youngest boy to surrender. But, deciding that that wasn't good Daleswood form, they (for their last hours, as they thought) fell to recalling the familiar beauties of their old home and to cutting in the Picardy chalk the roll of their names for remembrance. You get it again, that calling-up of the home memories, when, in another marooned party, the Sargeant that was keeper begins with a vision of sausages and mashed and goes on to the birds and beasts and flowers and soft noises of English woods at night. And in a half-dozen other sketches. And it is good to find an Irishman and a poet to say things which stick on our embarrassed tongues. Lord DUNSANY has a happy trick of compressing a great deal into a little space, and his vignettes, sketched in with a conscious art, should find a place on our shelves among the war records which our children are to read.
