OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
Not once or twice have I paid tribute to the craftsmanship of Mr. Neil Lyons, generally as a portrayer of mean urban streets and their inhabitants. His latest volume, however, Moby Lane and Thereabouts (Lane), finds him at large in the Sussex countryside. But the old skill and quick-witted charm serve him equally in these different surroundings. Mr. Lyons, as I have noticed before, achieves his ingenious effects not only by the quaint unexpected things he says but equally by the things that he skilfully omits to say. As an example of the second method I might cite one of the best of the sketches in the book, that called "Viaduct View," after the name of the detestable and dreary little house which a loving aunt has preserved for the problematical return of the nephew who would certainly not endure it for two days. This shows Mr. Lyons at his best—sympathetic, subtle and gently ironical. I am not saying that every one of the thirty-seven chapters is on the same high level. "Befriending Her Ladyship," for instance, a story that tells how a cottage-dweller repaid in kind the interfering house-inspection of the lady from the Hall, though amusingly told, is neither original in idea nor quite fair in execution. Throughout I found indeed that Mr. Lyons's natural good-humour and sympathy were severely tried when they came in contact with squires and the ruling classes; and that now and then he was unable to resist the temptation to burlesque. But for one thing at least he deserves unstinted praise; I know of no other writer who can transfer, as he can, the genuine flavour of dialect into print. Try reading some of the Moby Lane dialogue aloud and you will see what I mean.
If spacious hobbies make for happiness then is Sir Martin Conway the happiest of men. He has been before us at various times of his crowded life, now as an undaunted peak-compeller in Alps and Himalayas, or skiing over Arctic glaciers, or pushing forward into hazardous depths of Tierra del Fuego; now sitting authoritative in the Slade Chair at Cambridge, or contesting an election, or restoring an old castle, or picking up priceless primitives for paltry pence in Paduan pawnshops; and always as a resourceful author setting it all down (in a couple of dozen books or so) with an easy-flowing pen incapable of boring. In The Crowd in Peace and War (Longmans) he makes his bow as the political philosopher. It is a lively essay packed with observation, reflection, modern instances; it intrigues us with audacious and disputable generalisations, acute criticism, and a liberal temper. Solemnity and dulness are banished from it, and it might well serve as a light pendant to the admirable Human Nature in Politics of Mr. Graham Wallas. Let no student (and no mandarin either) neglect it. And we others, however scornful we may profess to be, are all at heart desperately interested in the confounded thing called politics, and can all appreciate this shrewd analysis of the vices and virtues of the crowd "which lacks reason but possesses faith," whose despotism is now on trial as once was that of our kings—"unlimited crowddom being as wretched a state as unlimited monarchy." As a dose of politics without tears I unreservedly commend this book.
I am like Mr. Jacobs' Night Watchman; it's very hard to deceive me. I had read only a few pages of Miss Una Silberrad's The Mystery of Barnard Hanson (Hutchinson) when I guessed who had done the murder. Unfortunately, when I had read a few pages more, I found that I had picked the wrong person. Then I accused another character on perfectly good circumstantial evidence, and he was not the man. After that I decided to withdraw from the detective business and let Miss Silberrad unravel her mystery for herself. If you are of the opinion that a woman cannot keep a secret read The Mystery of Barnard Hanson and become convinced that Miss Silberrad at least is an exception. If I have ever read a more perfectly sustained mystery novel I cannot recall it. There is just a chance that in the last few pages you may get on the right track, but, if you are honest with yourself, you will have to admit that you did it simply by a process of elimination, after you had made an ass of yourself and arrested every innocent person in the book on suspicion. I think it is Miss Silberrad's manner that throws the detective reader out of his stride. She is so detached. She conveys the impression that she herself is just as puzzled as you are, and that, for all she knows, Barnard Hanson may have been murdered by somebody who is not in the book at all. In other words she gives her story just that reality which a murder mystery has when unfolded day by day in the papers. I confess that, when I unwrapped the book and found that a polished artist like Miss Silberrad had written a detective story, I was a little shocked; but I need not have been. There are no dummies in this novel. Each character is as excellently drawn as if delineation of character were the author's main object; and in the matter of style there is no concession to the tastes of the cruder public which makes murder novels its staple diet.
