_(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)_
The latest of our novelists to succumb to the temptations of the school
story is Mr. E. F. BENSON; and I am pleased to add that in _David
Blaize_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) he seems to have scored a notable
success. It is the record of a not specially distinguished, but entirely
charming, lad during his career at his private and public schools.
Incidentally, as such records must, it becomes the history of certain
other boys, two especially, and of _David_'s relations with them. It is
this that is the real motive of the book. The friendship between
_Maddox_ and _David_, its dangers and its rewards, seems to me to have
been handled with the rarest delicacy and judgment. The hazards of the
theme are obvious. There have been books in plenty before now that,
essaying to navigate the uncharted seas of schoolboy friendship, have
foundered beneath the waves of sloppiness that are so ready to engulph
them. The more credit then to Mr. BENSON for bringing his barque
triumphantly to harbour. To drop metaphor, the captious or the forgetful
may call the whole sentimental--as if one could write about boys and
leave out what is the greatest common factor of the race. But the
sentiment is never mawkish. There is indeed an atmosphere of clean,
fresh-smelling youth about the book that is vastly refreshing.
Friendship and games make up the matter of it; there is nothing that I
could repeat by way of plot; but if you care for a close and sympathetic
study of boyhood at its happiest here is the book for your money.
Finally I may mention that, though in sympathetic studies of boyhood the
pedagogue receives as a rule scant courtesy, Mr. BENSON'S masters are
(with one unimportant exception) such delightful persons that I can only
hope that they are actual and not imaginary portraits.
* * * * *
You will get quite a serviceable impression of what the highlands and
highlanders of Serbia and Montenegro were like in war, behind the lines
when the lines still held, from _The Luck of Thirteen_ (SMITH, ELDER),
by JAN GORDON (colourist) and CORA his wife, if you are not blinded by
the perpetual flashes of brightness--such flashes as "somebody had
gnawed a piece from one of the wheels" as an explanation of jolting;
"the twistiest stream, which seemed as though it had been designed by a
lump of mercury on a wobbling plate;" the trees in the mist "seemed to
stand about with their hands in their pockets, like vegetable
Charlie----" But no! I am hanged if I will write the accurséd name. This
plucky pair of souls had put in some stiff months of typhus-fighting
with a medical mission in the early months of the war, and these are
impressions of the holiday which they took thereafter among those
fateful hills, with a little carrying of despatches, retrieving of
stores and a good deal of parasite-hunting thrown in, until they were
finally caught up in the tragic Serbian retreat; still remaining, of
course, incurably "bright." I think I detect a certain amount of the
too-British attitude that contemns what is strange and is more than a
little scornful of poverty, official and private. And I suppose the
artist's wife will scoff if I tell her that I was shocked that she
should have taken some shots at the Austrians with a Montenegrin machine
gun, as if war was just a cock-shy for tourists. But I was. If Mr. JAN
GORDON found a good deal more colour in his subjects than we other
fellows would have been able to see, that's what an artist's for.
* * * * *
[Illustration: SALVE.
_Returning Soldier._ "'ULLO, MOTHER!"
_His Wife (with stoic self-control)._ "'ULLO, FRED. BETTER WIPE YER
BOOTS BEFORE YOU COME IN--AFTER THEM MUDDY TRENCHES."]
* * * * *
In _Jitny and the Boys_ (SMITH, ELDER) there are those elements of
patriotism, humour and pathos which I find so desirable in War-time
books. _Jitny_ was neither man nor woman, but a motor-car, and without
disparaging those who drove her and rode in her I am bound to say that
she was as much alive as any one of them. She certainly talked--or was
responsible for--a lot of motor-shop, and I took it all in with the
greatest ease and comfort. _Jitny_ indeed is a great car, but she is not
exactly the heroine of a novel. She is just the sit-point from which a
very human family surveys the world at a time when that world is
undergoing a vast upheaval. In the father of this family Mr. BENNET
COPPLESTONE has scored an unqualified success, but the boys are perhaps
a little old for their years. This, however, is no great matter, for the
essential fact is that the book is full of the thoughts which make us
proud to-day and help us to face to-morrow. Yes, _Jitny_ has my
blessing.
* * * * *
Little Willie goes for more Loot.
"In the Woevre the Germans attempted on three occasions to
capture from us an earthquake."--_Glasgow Evening News._
* * * * *
A schoolgirl's translation:--"_La marquise recommanda son âme à Dieu._"
"The Marquis wished his donkey good-bye."
* * * * *
"A number of officers in the province of Yunnan, China, hatched
a plot to behead the Governor-General at Urumtsi, and proclaim
the independence of the province of Sinkiang. The Governor,
discovering the plot, invited ten of the conspirators to an
official dinner, at which he beheaded them in turn."--_Reuter._
"Another glass of wine, Mr. Wung Ti?" "No? Very well, then, if you would
kindly stand up a moment and place your neck on the back of your
chair---- Thank you. After the savoury I shall have the pleasure of
calling upon the next on my list, Mr. Ah Sin," and so on. Quite a jolly
dinner-party.