(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
It would certainly have been a thousand pities if the coming of Peace had
deprived us of anything so cheerfully stimulating as the tales of "SAPPER"
(CYRIL MCNEILE). His _Bull-Dog Drummond_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) shows all
the old breathless invention as active as ever, while the pugnacity--to
give it no stronger term--is wholly unrestrained, even by what might seem
the unpromising atmosphere of Godalming in 1919. It would, of course, be
utterly beyond my scope to give in barest outline any list of the wild and
whirling events that begin when _Captain Hugh Drummond_ selects the most
encouraging of the answers to his "Bored ex-soldier" advertisement and
meets the writer, a cryptic but lovely lady, in the Carlton lounge.
(Judging by contemporary fiction, what histories could those walls reveal!)
After that the affair almost instantly develops into one lurid sequence of
battle, murder, bluff and the kind of ten-minutes-here-for-courtship which
proves that there is a gentler side even to the process of tracking crime.
As usual, though less in this business than most, because of the engaging
humour of the hero, I experienced a mild sympathy for the arch-villains;
and indeed they might well feel some bitterness when, after being described
as the master-intellects of the age, the author required them to conduct
their most secret affairs in a lighted ground-floor room with the curtains
undrawn. Most of them turn out to be Bolshevists, or at least in the
receipt of Soviet subsidies--though I see a well-known Labour Daily
reviewed the plot as unconvincing. Odd! Anyhow, a rattling story.
* * * * *
I am aware that, in confessing to an entire ignorance of any one of the
so-called _Books of Artemas_, I place myself in a minority so small as to
be almost beneath notice. This certainly is how the publishers regard the
matter if one may judge by their ecstatically jubilant, "Artemas has
written a novel! 7s. 6d. net," on the wrapper of _A Dear Fool_ (WESTALL).
Well, I have read the novel carefully, even I trust generously, with the
unhappy result that (knowing how elusive and individual a thing is
laughter) I can hardly bring myself to say how dull I found it. But the
fact remains. It is all about nothing--a preposterous little plot for the
identification, at a wildly inhuman reception, of an anonymous dramatist,
revealed finally as the journalist hero who was nearly sacked for writing
the play's only bad notice. In my day I have met both editors and critics;
even dramatists. I don't say they were all pleasant people; many of them
were not. But--here is my point--practically every one of them had at least
sufficient of our common humanity to prevent them from behaving for one
instant as their representatives do in this book. Let us charitably leave
it at that. Probably the next man I meet will have invited apoplexy over
his enjoyment of the same pages that moved me only to an irritated
bewilderment. You never can tell.
* * * * *
I rather think that _The Man with the Rubber Soles_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON)
is Sir ALEXANDER BANNERMAN'S firstling, at least as far as fiction is
concerned. If so, many others will share my hope that it may prove to be
the eldest of a large family. For the author has not merely the knack of
telling a good mystery story in a way that keeps one interested until the
last page is turned; he tells it in a curiously dry matter-of-fact way that
makes really startling adventures seem the sort of thing that might happen
to anybody. The story concerns the pursuit of a gang of men who are engaged
in importing forged Treasury notes on a large scale and uttering them
through skilfully organised agencies. The police and various civilians
between them--there is no super-sleuth to weary us with his machine-like
prowess--run the thing to earth, partly by skill and partly by good luck,
and the civilians in particular have a stirring time doing it. Bombs,
automatic pistols, even soldiers and a submarine, assist quite naturally in
sustaining the interest. And a pleasant little romance is really woven into
the plot, not just pushed in anyhow. Altogether _The Man with the Rubber
Soles_ is a most excellent story of its kind, a real novel because plot and
treatment are alike new, and one can safely prophesy that when Sir
ALEXANDER BANNERMAN produces his nextling he will find a large and
appreciative circle of readers waiting to welcome it.
* * * * *
Three things charmed me particularly about _Henry Elizabeth_ (HURST AND
BLACKETT), whose remarkable second name was due to the fact that he was
born in the same year as the Virgin Queen and that his father had hoped
that he too would be a girl. In the first place he became the greatest
swordsman of his age and I was thus able to add him to my fine collection
of Elizabethan heroes who have achieved this honour. What happens when two
of these champions meet in those shadowy regions of romance where all
costume novels are merged I do not know. It must be rather like the
irresistible force and the immovable object. In the second place _H.E._ (no
one could better deserve these formidable initials) was given the job of
clearing Lundy Island of its piratical tenants, and I happened to have
Lundy Island just opposite me as I read the book. It is not often that a
reviewer has the chance of checking local colour with so little pains. And
in the third place Mr. JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY informs me, on page 101, that
his hero will "gaze one day upon rivers to which the Thames should seem
little better than a pitiful rivulet." As _Henry_ never gets further from
his native Devon than London in the course of this novel I take it that
this is a delicate allusion to the possibility of a sequel. I hope it is
so, and that I shall hear of _Henry_ in days to come, after a trip or two
with RALEIGH or DRAKE, rebuilding his manor of Braginton, which was
unfortunately burnt to the ground, and settling down to plant potatoes and
tobacco in prosperity and peace.
* * * * *
From the title, _Brute Gods_ (HEINEMANN), you may guess that Mr. LOUIS
WILKINSON'S new novel does not deal with homely topics in a vein of
harmless frolic. In recommending this very serious work of an expert author
and observer, I am bound to make some reservation. Unsophisticated youth,
if such there be in these days, should be kept away from the affair between
_Alec Glaive_ and _Gillian Collett_. _Alec_, a mere boy, was in a
dangerously unsettled condition when the lady crossed his path. His mother
had upset a not too happy family by eloping with a literary _poseur_; the
egoism of his father had been rendered even more oppressive and his sarcasm
even more acid thereby; and a Roman Catholic priest, intent on securing a
convert for his Order, had been plying his young mind with too exciting
conversations and too refreshing wines. Apart from external circumstances,
_Alec_ was tending to quarrel with humanity at large, and so he went the
whole hog, more in search of a desperate ideal than by way of impetuous
sin. Mr. WILKINSON treats the affair with deliberate, cold-blooded, even
cynical analysis; and his portrayal of the snobbery and humbug of the
upper-middle class, social and intellectual, in which his creatures move is
searching and disturbing. But, I ask myself, are people really like that?
Or rather are there enough of these unnaturals, extremists, moral
Bolshevists or whatever you like to call them, to justify their
presentation as a modern type? Always an optimist, I think not; and I
notice that the author gives a no less clever and a much more convincing
impression of the normal, settled and pleasant characters who are
incidental to the plot. Make for yourself the acquaintance of the charming
_Wilfred Vail_ and the most amusing and seductive Cockney artiste, _Betty
Barnfield_, and you will admit, however pessimistic your views, that there
may be something in mine.
* * * * *
[Illustration: ROMANCE AND PROSE.
_The Youth._ "CAN YOU DIRECT ME TO THE CASTLE OF THE BLACK MOUNTAIN?"
_The Old Man._ "I CAN, YOUNG MAN. BUT PERCHANCE THOU GOEST TO SEEK THE HAND
OF THE PRINCESS? BEWARE, RASH YOUTH! IT IS A PERILOUS ADVENTURE. THOU WILT
BE REQUIRED TO ACHIEVE MANY DANGEROUS TASKS. HAST THOU THOUGHT OF THE
RISK?"
_The Youth._ "NOT MUCH. I'M GOIN' TO MEND THE KITCHEN BOILER."]
* * * * *