My expectations of enjoyment on opening The Whalers (Hodder and Stoughton) were nil, for the tales of whaling to which from time to time I have been compelled to listen have produced sensations which can only be described as nauseating. Somewhere, somehow, I knew that brave men risked their lives in gaining a precarious livelihood from blubber, but I was more than content to hear no further details either of them or their captures. Let me acknowledge, then, that Mr. J. J. Bell has persuaded me, against my will, of the romance and fascination of the whalers' calling. The twelve stories—or perhaps they ought to be called sketches—in this book contain plenty that is romantic and practically nothing that is repulsive. "There is," the author says with engaging frankness, "much that is slow in whaling. On the whole there is more anxiety than excitement, more labour than sport." Not for me is it to contradict such an authority, but even granted that he is right the fact remains that no one can justly complain of a lack of excitement in these stories, though complaints may legitimately be made that their pathos is sometimes allowed to drop into sentimentality. "The Herr Professor—an Interlude" deserves an especial word of praise, for it proves again that Mr. Bell, when not occupied in other directions, can be simply and delightfully funny.
At the War Office. "Oh, please could you tell me how to find Lord Kitchener's room? I want to see him particularly, and I won't keep him long. It's just to write his favourite author and flower in my album."
It must have happened to all of us to be hailed by some friend with the greeting, "I've got the funniest story to tell you; it'll make you scream," and to listen thereafter to something that produced nothing but irritated perplexity. Then, if the friend were a valued one, with a record of genuine humour, we would perhaps evoke with difficulty a polite snigger, and so break from the encounter. Well, this is very much what I cannot, help feeling about The Phantom Peer (Chapman And Hall). I have had such entertainment from Mr. Edwin Pugh in the past that I prepared for this Extravanganza (his own term) in a mood of smiling anticipation. But from the first page to the last it had me beat. Fun is the last subject in the world upon which one should dare to dogmatize; and to others, more fortunate, the thing may bring laughter. I can only envy them. It is not that I complain of the impossibility of the plot. Extravaganza covers a multitude of coincidences. When Johnnie Shotter was persuaded to take the name and personality of an imaginary Lord Counterpound, I bore without a murmur the immediate arrival on the scene of an actual holder of that very title. It was the dreariness of the resulting muddle that baffled me. To make matters worse the intrigue, such as it is, breaks off abruptly for several chapters in the middle, to permit the introduction of what appears to be an attempted satire upon forcible feeding. At the end, one of the chief male characters turns out to be a woman; but as none of them was anything but a knock-jointed puppet jumping upon ill-concealed wires the transformation was just academically uninteresting. I am sorry, Mr. Pugh, but even for your sake I can only say, "Tell us a better one next time!"
From the letter of an American restaurateur to a new arrival from England:—
"Dear Sir,—Before I chef—one Italian noble family—now come America—start the business my own—house top side this paper. Everybody speaks it me. Lunches and Dinners worth two (2) times. I delighted preparation for you—no charge extra—only notification me few hours behind. I build for clientelle intellectual—they more appreciation my art."