Chapter 3

But the writer tackles his job in a half-hearted manner, using such ponderous polysyllables as "international" and "acquisition." Now Mr. Punch, always ready to lend a hand in a good cause, has instructed one of his young men to rewrite two of _The Chronicle_ reviews in words of one syllable, and presents them to his contemporary as models for imitation in the future.

I.--Mrs. Ward.

A GREAT HIT. By Mrs. Hump. Ward. Lond., Smith, Eld., _3s. 6d._ net.

For the most part Mrs. WARD writes long yarns, and those who read her books look to her for more than five score thou. words. Here she gives us a short tale in which the three chief _rôles_ are filled by a man who earns lots of dibs by his pen, his wife, and their, or his, friend--a peer's wife, who takes him up for her own ends. She tries in her hard bright way to shape his course as she views it, which means a place in the sun for _her_. The wife, who has brains as well as a warm heart, will not be robbed of her man like this, puts up a good fight, and in the end has the best of the bout with the pale witch with dark eyes who had waved her wand o'er the knight of the pen. It is not poss. to deal with all the points of Mrs. HUMP. WARD's book in words of one syll., but we can at least say here is a good tale to speed the flight of the hours of eve.

II.-The Bills.

THE SHOP GIRL. By C. N. and A. M. Sons o' Bill. Lond., Meth., _6s._

_Miss Child_ is a nice sweet girl with lots of sense who goes to the land of the Yanks and makes things hum a bit in a nice sweet way. She meets her fate on board the big ship on the way out; but a long and bright yarn has to be read ere she makes the Port of Joy. We see a Yank store in full swing, learn much of the way it is worked, and the folk who run it are well drawn. To be frank one could scarce think that so _chic_ a tale could be made out of the prose of New York. But to the Bills--if I may so call them--all the world is a stage, and they see through the heart of the New Eve with a gaze that is quite weird. In fine this is a tale in which the Bills, while they take new ground, write with all their old _flair_ and charm.

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FORAIN.

When M. RAEMAEKERS went to Paris the other day to receive his decoration and be fêted for his fine pro-Ally spirit, it was M. FORAIN, as the head of living French cartoonists, who received him in the name of France and conferred the Order. M. FORAIN'S public appearances are nowadays few and far between, but he still wields--and none more searchingly--a pencil keen and swift as a sword, and he never takes it in hand but to create something memorable. A selection of his recent work is now on view in London at 22, Montagu Square, the residence of Mr. CAMPBELL DODGSON, the Keeper of the Prints at the British Museum, the proceeds of the entrance fees being intended for a hospital for French wounded soldiers at Arc-en-Barrois. The little exhibition, which should be seen by all who love great draughtsmanship and France, remains open until April 1.

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AT THE PLAY.

"The Barton Mystery."

One of the most difficult feats of juggling is, I understand, the deft tossing up and catching of a heavy weight (say a dumb-bell), a very light weight, such as a champagne cork, together with any old thing of irregular shape, a bedroom candlestick, for instance. Mr. WALTER HACKETT'S _The Barton Mystery_ is a most ingenious turn of this sort.

The _fiancé_ of the sister of the wife of _Richard Standish, M.P._, is under sentence of death for the murder of _Mr. Barton_. He happens to be innocent, though he admits at the trial that he quarrelled violently with and even threatened _Barton_ on the night of the murder, and his revolver has been found by the dead man's side. That vindictive relict, _Mrs. Barton_, is holding back some material evidence which could save the condemned man, or so _Standish_ thinks, and she is adamant. Now _Barton_ was unquestionably a bad egg, but the widow doesn't want the whole world to know it--at least not till she finds the woman. Some woman, who had incidentally written some, shall we say, very impetuous love letters, is being shielded. Who is she? Is it _Standish's_ wife, for instance? Ah!... This is the dumb-bell.

A _Lady Marshall_, the wife of a _Sir Everard Marshall_, a comic scientist in perpetual flight from his overwhelming spouse, is one of the sort that finds a new religion every few months and is now in the first fast furious throes of her latest, which is some form of psychomania, whereof the high priest is one _Beverley_, a plausible ringletted charlatan of alcoholic tendencies (_Sludge the Medium_, without his cringe and snarl), who ekes out his spasmodic visitations of genuine psychic illumination with the most shameless spoof. This is the cork.

The candlestick is the dream _motif_, always a ticklish business to handle, and in this particular case--well, no, I won't be such a spoil-sport as to go into that, for the chief pleasure of this kind of an entertainment is the succession of pleasant unexpected shocks which are deftly administered to the audience by the author.

There were times indeed when the latter nearly dropped his dumb-bell--times when it was in imminent peril of barging into the cork; and most certainly the candlestick very nearly slipped out of his hand. But it just didn't, so you will see that it was really a most exceptional piece of jugglery. Of course I will admit you have to swallow the robust assumption that into a household over which the shadow of death in its ugliest form hovers so threateningly two fatuous people, to wit the scientist and his wife, can come and babble about their own trivial domestic troubles or their latest philosophy of life. But then mystery plays always are like that, and this is a jolly good one of its kind--a kind which it pains me, as a superior person, to confess that I liked enormously.

Mr. H. B. IRVING as the preposterous _Beverley_ was in his very best form. _Beverley_ is really a creation. How much the author's and how much the player's it would be an impertinence to inquire. This imperturbable trickster with his thin streak of genuine sensitiveness to psychic influence; his grotesquely florid style--the man certainly has style; his frank reliance on apt alcohol's artful aid; his cadging epicureanism; his keen eye for supplementary data for his inductions and prophecies; his cynical candour when detected, is presented to us with Mr. IRVING'S rich-flavoured and most whimsical sense of comedy, with all his exuberant abundance of gracious or fantastic gesture and resourceful business. In the trances, sometimes real, sometimes simulated, he gives you a plausible sketch of how a modicum of psychic power (whatever that may be), laced with whisky neat, might colour a séance. Mr. _Hackett_, by way of showing that he has not ignored the literature of his subject, has adapted from the admirable, but, I regret to say, entirely untrustworthy, because incurably original, MAETERLINCK an entirely new definition of psychometry. But we certainly will not go into that.

Mr. HOLMAN CLARK as the sceptical _Sir Everard_, completely spoofed by _Beverley_ in the end, with an elaborate make-up ruthlessly reminding us of our simian ancestry, potters cleverly about the stage with that admirable and amiable craft which he has at such easy command. Miss MARIE ILLINGTON as _Lady Marshall_, the seeker after light, kept the burlesquerie of her part skilfully within bounds--indeed this matter of key was extraordinarily well handled by the three players entrusted with what I have ventured to call the cork _motif_.

As to the more serious business, Mr. H. V. ESMOND seemed to behave very much as one would imagine a decent M.P. behaving in such embarrassing circumstances. He suspected his wife with all the ardour which public men on the stage always exhibit. His little turn of desperate tragedy carried conviction--almost too much conviction, as you will find--but I won't explain.

Miss JESSIE WINTER, as his wife, very adroitly contrived an ambiguous effect of likely guilt but possible innocence. She more than fulfils the promise of her last performance in this theatre, but she must (may I tell her?) arrest the development of "the Fatal Cæsura," that exasperating histrionic device whereby every salient phrase is broken up for no conceivable reason into two halves. In the secondary stages there is but slender hope of a cure; in the tertiary there is none.

Miss DARRAGH was, as required, the vindictive widow to the life (this kind of life, you understand), and Miss HILDA BAYLEY played very charmingly the little wilful _fiancée_ who--but no, I must keep my promise.

With much less evidence than the applause and generally keyed-up attitude of the Savoy audience afforded me, I could risk a psychic communication in the authentic manner of a Beverley séance. "All is dark.... It is getting light.... I see a man.... He leans eagerly to a telephone.... He thrusts something into envelopes. He goes on thrusting things into envelopes. The telephone keeps ringing.... It is.... Can it be? Yes, it _is_ a Box Office." An institution which at the Savoy should be busy for many months to come.

T.

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A MISNOMER.

"In memory of the name of the late Dr. F. C. Batchelor it is proposed that the name of the Forth Street Maternity Hospital (Dunedin) be altered to that of the Batchelor Hospital."--_Southland Times_ (_N.Z._)

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MUSIC IN WAR TIME.

The Converted Collector.

(_An Order in Council prohibits the importation of all musical instruments._)

In ancient, peaceful _ante-bellum_ days-- Now far remote as HANNIBAL'S or HANNO'S-- I had a weakness, possibly a craze, For buying Hun pianos.

I let no patriotic sentiment My honest inclination curb or fetter; On foreign articles my cash I spent, Because I liked them better.

Nor would I now proscribe Germanic Art, Their one surviving claim to lasting glory, Or bar BEETHOVEN, WAGNER, BACH, MOZART-- STRAUSS is another story.

But while our enemy unshattered stands In any single theatre or sector, I take no interest in German "grands," As player or collector.

I will not have them broken up or burned, Although they cease to give me delectation, That mean to keep them suitably interned Throughout the War's duration.

But now the Board of Trade, those lynx-eyed gents, Our economic needs severely scanning, The importation of all instruments Have just resolved on banning.

No matter; I possess a set of pipes Made in the land whose emblem is the Thistle; Three Indian tom-toms of peculiar types And a Bolivian whistle.

I've a Peruvian nose-flute, made of bone, A war-conch brought me from the South Pacific, Which, by a leather-lunged performer blown, Is really quite horrific.

I have some balalaikas, few though fit, Whose strings I have acquired some skill in tweaking; And several pifferi, whose tubes emit A most unearthly squeaking.

I am, alas! too old and weak to fight, But on these non-Teutonic pipes and tabors I hope a martial spirit to incite In "conscientious" neighbours.

And when my time, as soon it must, shall come, My epitaph perhaps might thus begin well: "He 'did his bit' upon the Indian drum; He played the mandolin well.

Others who stayed at home to criticize More vocal proved; he, on a falling rental, In furthering the cause of the Allies Was always instrumental."

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In an account of a BURNS' celebration given by the _North Battleford News_ (Saskatchewan), it is remarked that "the absence of any kind of spirituous liquors around the festive board and the fact that the ladies were present" were unique features of the entertainment. But, according to the same report, there was yet another: "'The Immoral Memory' was given by Rev. D. Munro."

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OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerics._)

It is a tragic coincidence that, just as RUPERT BROOKE'S now famous sonnets were published in volume form after his own death, the appearance of his _Letters from America_ (SIDGWICK AND JACKSON) follows immediately upon the death of Mr. HENRY JAMES, who had written the preface to them. Thus in one book we have the last work of two writers, widely separated in age and circumstance, but united by a very real bond of artistic and personal sympathy. How generous was the elder man's appreciation of the younger may be seen in this preface; it is at its best and simplest in dealing with that charm of personality by which all who knew RUPERT BROOKE will most vividly remember him. Elsewhere it must be confessed that the preface is by no means easy reading, so that one emerges at last a little breathless upon the transparent and sunlit stream of the _Letters_ themselves. Many who recall these from their publication in _The Westminster Gazette_ will be glad to meet them again. Those who knew the writer only as the poet of 1914 will perhaps wonder to find him the whimsical and smiling young adventurer who moves with such boyish enjoyment through these pages. There is holiday humour in them, even in the occasional statistics--holiday tasks, these latter; and everywhere the freshness of an unclouded vision. "Only just in time," one thinks, sharing the happiness that his _Letters_ reflect, and grateful for it as for a beautiful thing snatched so narrowly from fate.

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Mrs. BELLOC LOWNDES has written a story of the War that has at least the distinction of being absolutely fair. She has indeed got so far away from the perhaps excusable error of painting Germans uniformly black that her Huns in _The Red Cross Barge_ (SMITH, ELDER) are made upon the average quite as attractive as their enemies. This by way of warning, so that if you are in no mood to look for pearls amid swine you may avoid some impatience and a feeling that impartiality can be carried too far. Not by any means that _The Red Cross Barge_ is a pro-German book.... There is an attractive sense of atmosphere about Mrs. LOWNDES' picture of the little French town in which a group of Germans are left during what appears to them the triumphal march to Paris. Here _Herr Doktor Max Keller_ meets and falls in love with a French girl who is looking after certain wounded of both nations. The peaceful and picturesque air of the little place during this quiet occupation is well contrasted with the horrors that befall it when the draggled and drink-sodden soldiery come surging back in their retreat from the Marne. Eventually, just as the Germans are leaving, _Keller_ is fatally wounded, and dies holding the hand of the enemy who has become so dear to him. One can hardly call the tale anything but sentimental, but it is sentiment of a fragrant and wholesome kind. In the years to come such stories will no doubt multiply indefinitely, but there will be few more gracefully and gently told.

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Mr. RICHARD PRYCE, true to the fashion of describing the childhood of heroes at great length, has in _David Penstephen_ (METHUEN) out-COMPTONED MACKENZIE. _David_ in fact dallied so persistently in the nursery that I began to wonder if he would ever emerge; but, when he does get a move on, his story is strangely appealing. His father and mother, having ideas of their own, had excused themselves from the formalities of wedlock, and before _Mrs. Penstephen_ broke down under the strain of this omission _David_ and his sister, _Georgiana_, were born. Subsequently the parents were married, and had another son. But before this legitimate addition to the family a boating accident had deprived the world of two cousins of _Penstephen père_, and in consequence he inherited a baronetcy. This change of fortune affected his views, and as time passed by he became as orthodox a baronet as any you could wish to find in _Burke_. All of which was galling to _David's_ mother, who loved and was jealous for those children who were born to suffer for their parents' original morals. The situation required very delicate handling, and Mr. PRYCE is to be congratulated warmly upon the manner in which he has developed it. Perhaps a little more humour would have added salt to the tale, but however that may be we have a careful study of a boy and an exquisitely sympathetic portrait of a mother. The latter part of the book is admirable both in what it tells and in what it merely suggests. More is the pity that Mr. PRYCE has weighed down _David's_ childish back with too heavy a load of detail. My advice to you is to skip some of the earlier pages, and so husband your strength for the better enjoyment of the remainder.

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_The Duel_ (ALLEN AND UNWIN) is a study in the GORKY tradition, by ALEXANDER KUPRIN, of life in an obscure Russian regiment and an out-of-the-way provincial town before the great awakening that followed Mukden and Port Arthur purged away much dross and prepared the way for these latter days of sacrifice and heroism. It is a mournful document, a piece of devil's advocacy, a Russian counterpart of Lieutenant BILSE'S _Life in a Garrison Town_, identical in temper and astonishingly similar in some of its detail. It is clear that the author, who was for seven years an infantry lieutenant and probably little fitted for the military life even at its best, endured much unhappiness, for the marks of suffering have burnt themselves into the book so savagely that the English translation, though characterized by a crudity which might reasonably be expected to accomplish much in the way of eliminating the personality of the author, cannot quite rob his work of its impression of power and intimate tragedy. Those who are not in search of light refreshment and who will remember that this last decade of Russian national regeneration and reorganisation has rooted up the incompetence, the false standards, the irregular discipline and the inhuman barriers between officers and men here commented upon, may read these bitter chapters with profit. As for the translator, he might do well to study one of the GARNETT TURGENIEFFS, and see how this kind of thing should be done.