“Mr Gregory has a fresh and vigorous way of writing.”
+ Outlook 125:431 Je 30 ’20 80w
“While he tells a very entertaining and often amusing tale, it lacks much of the probability in his previous stories.”
+ − Springf’d Republican p11a Je 27 ’20 120w
GREGORY, JACKSON. Man to man. il *$2 (2½c) Scribner
20–19919
When Steve Packard comes home after twelve years of roaming, his father is dead and the ranch that should have been his is heavily mortgaged to his fiery old grandfather, “Hell-Fire Packard.” The old man gives him no odds on account of relationship, and Steve soon finds he’ll have to fight for his rights and his property. His first act is to discharge the ranch foreman Blenham, who has been running the place in his grandfather’s interests and his own. Blenham tries to annoy him in every possible way, and by deceit and treachery sets grandfather against grandson in more bitter hatred than ever. But Steve is capable and handles the ranch problems skilfully. In the meantime he has been falling in love with a little spitfire neighbor, Terry Temple. His suit does not go well, and finally Terry goes away and Steve does not care what happens. It even looks as if he might forfeit his ranch to his grandfather after all, and it doesn’t seem to matter much. Then—she comes back! He takes up the game with zest again, and in the last round of their battle, Blenham is defeated. Steve and his grandfather are reconciled, and he wins his girl.
“If one can hazard criticism of such a breakneck story, it is simply to say that Mr Gregory writes with both his eyes fixed on the film royalties. His prose style, left unsupervised, moves ahead with a sort of blind, blundering vigor.”
+ − N Y Evening Post p22 O 23 ’20 120w