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IF WINTER
DON'T
=A.B.C.D.E.F.=
=NOTSOMUCHINSON=
BY
BARRY PAIN
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1922, by
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
All rights reserved
First Printing, September 9, 1922
Second Printing, October 19, 1922
Third Printing, November 22, 1922
Fourth Printing, December 5, 1922
Printed in the United States of America
_These parodies do good to the book parodied; great good, sometimes;
they are kindly meant, and the parodist has usually keenly enjoyed the
book of which he sits down to make a fool._
R. L. STEVENSON.
PREFATORY NOTE
I
"IF WINTER COMES" placed its author not only as a Best Seller, but as
one of the Great Novelists of to-day. Not always are those royalties
crowned by those laurels. Tarzan (of, if I remember rightly, the Apes)
never won the double event. And I am told by superior people that,
intellectually, Miss Ethel M. Dell takes the hindmost. Personally, I
found "If Winter Comes" a most sympathetic and interesting book. I
think there are only two points on which I should be disposed to
quarrel with it. Firstly, though Nona is a real creation, Effie is an
incredible piece of novelist's machinery. Secondly, I detest the
utilization of the Great War at the present day for the purposes of
fiction. It is altogether too easy. It buys the emotional situation
ready-made. It asks the reader's memory to supplement the writer's
imagination. And this is not my sole objection to its use.
II
I wonder if I might, without being thought blasphemous, say a word or
two about the Great Novelists of to-day. They have certain points of
resemblance. I do not think that over-states it.
They have the same little ways. They divide their chapters into
sections, and number the sections in plain figures. This is quite
pontifical, and lends your story the majesty of an Act of Parliament.
The first man who did it was a genius. And the other seven hundred and
eighteen showed judgment. I propose to use it myself when I remember
it.
Then there is the three-dot trick. At one time those dots indicated an
omission. To-day, some of our best use them as an equivalent of the
cinema fade-out. Those dots prolong the effect of a word or sentence;
they lend it an afterglow. You see what I mean? Afterglow ...
One must mention, too, the staccato style--the style that makes the
printer send the boy out for another hundred gross of full-stops. All
the Great Novelists of to-day use it, more or less.
III
Let us see what can be done with it. Here, for instance, is a sentence
which was taught me in the nursery, for its alleged tongue-twisting
quality: "She stood at the door of Burgess's fish-sauce shop, Strand,
welcoming him in." In that form it is not impressive, but now note
what one of these staccato merchants might make of it.
"Across the roaring Strand red and green lights spelling on the gloom.
'BURGESS'S FISH-SAU.' A moment's darkness and again 'BURGESS'S
FISH-SAU.' Like that. Truncated. The final --CE not functioning. He
had to look though it hurt him. Hurt horrible. Damnably. And his eyes
traveled downward.
"Suddenly and beyond hope she! Isobel-at-the-last. Standing in the
doorway. White on black. Slim. Willowy. Incomparable. Incommensurable.
She saw him and her lips rounded to a call. He sensed it through the
traffic. Come in. Calling and calling. Come in.
"Come in....
"Out of the rain."
It is like a plaintive hymn sung to a banjo accompaniment.
Incidentally it illustrates another favorite trick of these
gentlemen--the introduction of a commonplace or even jarring detail
into a romantic scene in order to increase its appearance of reality.
It is quite a good trick.
IV
And sometimes, not every day but sometimes, one gets a little weary
even of the best tricks. Need the author depend quite so much on the
printer for his effects? Scenes and passages in a book seem to be
standing very near the edge, and the wanton thought occurs to one that
a little shove would send them over. In fact, one gets irritable. And
then anything bad may happen. This parody for instance.
IF WINTER DON'T
CHAPTER I
Luke Sharper. Age, thirty-four. Married, but not much. Private
residence, Jawbones, Halfpenny Hole, Surrey. Favorite recreation,
suffering. Favorite flower----
Oh, drop it! Let us rather listen to Mr. Alfred Jingle, solicitor,
talking to his artist friend.
"Met Sharper yesterday. Remember him at the old school? Flap Sharper
we called him. Not that they really did flap. His ears, I mean. They
just crept up and bent over when he was thinking hard. People came to
see it. Came from miles around.
"Rum chap. Rum ways. Never agreed with anybody present, including
himself. Always inventing circumstantial evidence to convict himself
of crimes he had never committed. Remember the window? Half-brick came
flying through it. Old Borkins looked out. Below stood Flap Sharper
with the other half-brick in his hand. Arm drawn back. No other boy in
sight. The two halves fitted exactly. It certainly looked like it.
Poor old Flap found that it felt like it, too. But he had never
chucked that half-brick. Ogilvie did it. Remember him? The one we
called Pink-eye. Have a drink?
"I offered Sharper my sympathy. Wouldn't have it. Said 'Why?'
Maintained that we had all got to suffer in this life, and it was
better to begin early. Excellent practice. Then his ears crept up and
bent over. Got it again later in the day for drawing a caricature of
old Borkins. Never did it, of course. Couldn't draw. Can't remember
who did it. Oh, you did, did you? Like you. Have another?
"Yes, we have a certain amount of business in Dilborough. I'm
generally down there once or twice a year. I walk over to Halfpenny
Hole and lunch with Sharper. It's a seven mile walk. But lunch at the
hotel is seven-and-six. Doing uncommonly well, is Sharper. He's in
Pentlove, Postlethwaite and Sharper. You know. The only jams that
really matter. Pickles, too. Chutney. Very hot stuff. Oh, yes,
Sharper's all right.
"You ought to run down and see Halfpenny Hole. What is it the agents
say? Old-world. It's very old-world. Only three houses in it, and all
different. Whether the garden settlement will spoil it or not is
another matter. You go and paint it before it gets spoilt.
"Strictly between ourselves, I am not quite sure that Sharper and his
wife hit it off. Oh, nothing much. It's just that when he speaks to
her she never answers, and when she speaks to him he never answers. In
fact, if she speaks at all he groans and moves his ears. Charming
woman, very. Quite pretty. There may be nothing in it. I saw no actual
violence. Sharper may merely have been suffering. He wouldn't be happy
if he wasn't. Have a drink. No?"