Chapter 4

I am quite prepared to accept Mr. LINDSAY BASHFORD'S _Cupid in the Car_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL) as a nice unpretentious diary of a motor-tour on and about the Franco-German Frontier, ingeniously done into novel form and wholesomely seasoned with adventure and the arrangement of marriages shortly to take place. And I distinctly like his taciturn paragon of a chauffeur, _Eugene_--a nephew of _Enery Straker_ the voluble, as I should judge from a certain family resemblance and, by the way, much too intelligent to murder his French phrases in the hopeless manner which the author, none too scrupulous in these little touches, suggests. But whether Mr. BASHFORD hasn't spoilt an enthusiastic travel book without producing quite a plausible novel--a defect of tactics rather than of capacity--and whether the book doesn't show too many signs of the hustle and vibration of the car are questions that intrude themselves; and certainly one has a right to jib at the Preface, which seems to suggest that the novel, written before war broke out, was to enlighten the public, by a sugar-coated method, as to the general terrain of the conflict inevitable at some future date, so that we might "better picture the work our loved ones were doing at the Front." If this were indeed so, then it was distinctly untactful that the only British officer who appears should be a tosh-talking General obviously too fond of his food. The fact is that the topical preface is being overdone these days.

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My only complaint against _The Flute of Arcady_ (STANLEY PAUL) is that Miss KATE HORN, who wrote it, seems somewhat to have disregarded the classic advice of _Mr. Curdle_ to _Nicholas Nickleby_ in the matter of observing the unities. It struck me, indeed, that she had begun it as a Cinderella-tale and then found that there wasn't enough of this to go round. Thus the early chapters roused my sympathetic interest for _Charlotte Clairvaux_ (the bullied companion of the hateful cat, _Mrs. Menzies_) and her admiring suitor, _Dr. Shuckford_. I felt deeply for poor _Charlotte_, and longed for the moment when the doctor, who was eminently desirable, would fold her in his manly arms. But this moment came confusingly early, in the third chapter, and left us with three-quarters of the book to fill up. So _Charlotte_, for no reason--that I could see--but this of space, refuses her _Shuckford_, and off go she and _Mrs. Menzies_ to Versailles, where they meet a good number of pleasantly-drawn people, and encounter a variety of adventures, some amusing, some merely farcical. Without doubt Miss HORN has a pretty wit, but I admired its exercise far more in character than incident. There is, for example, a delightful new version of _Mrs. Malaprop_ in the lady whose ambition it was "to live in a mayonnaise in a good part of London." I loved her, and the terrible French infant, and the nuns, and the old countess and the other Versailles folk. But of the incidents, fantastic adventures with elephants and such, one sometimes feels that their humour is, as the author says of _M. de Lafontaine's_ smile, a thing that seemed to be jerked out by machinery. Yet I am bound to confess that it made me laugh. So why grumble?

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Illustration: THE WILHELM MISTLETOE.

A CARD OF TEUTONIC ORIGIN NOT LIKELY TO HAVE A BIG SALE OVER HERE THIS SEASON.

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_The Times_, describing the attempted escape of a German officer in the disguise of 'Safety Matches,' says: "There was nothing in the box to excite suspicion." Except, of course, the officer.

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"Never again will one rigid form of civilisation prevail.... The world has grown too big to rest content with one standard."

_Evening Standard._

Hence _The Evening Standard_.

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