Chapter M

A PRELUDE.

["Birds in London are already growing alive to the approach of Spring."--_The Times._]

A portly, fancy-vested thrush,
That carolled, on a wintry spray,
A crazy song of Spring-time--Hush!
No, not the one
By MENDELSSOHN
Victorian Britons used to play,
But just the sort of casual thing
An absent-minded bird might sing.

Observing whom--"Alas," I said,
"Good friend, how premature your theme!
By some phenomenon misled,
You've overshot
The date a lot;
Things are so seldom what they seem!"
"Then hear the simple truth," quoth he,
"For that's another rarity.

"There is a foreign, furious man,
That sends great engines through the air
To deal destruction where they can,
To rain their fires
On ancient spires,
Ousting the birds that settle there,
And agitates, of fixed intent,
Our pleasaunce in the firmament.

"And everybody says the Spring
Will see him pay the price of it,
So that is why I choose to sing
What isn't true--
But as for you,
Be off and do your little bit!
It's not for you to stand and quiz--
The season's _what I say it is!_"

* * * * *

"A Chicago Reuter message says that Hugh Henderson has won the American draughts championship by defeating Alfred Jordan, the London champion.

Draught horses were in most demand at Aldridge's, St. Martin's-lane, yesterday, and the sums obtained ranged from 30gs. to 49gs."

_Daily Telegraph_.

The forty-nine guinea one has challenged HUGH HENDERSON.

* * * * *

_Officer._ "YES. LIVE STOCK OF EVERY DESCRIPTION HAS TO BE BRANDED AND DRIVEN WEST."

_Farmer._ "I CAN SEE MY WAY ALL RIGHT EXCEPT FOR MY BEES. WHAT AM I TO DO WI' MY BEES?"]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

There are few living writers of romance who can carry the sword and doublet with the ease of Miss MARJORIE BOWEN. She has long since proved herself a practised mistress of mediævalism, and _The Carnival of Florence_ (METHUEN) finds her therefore on sure ground. It is a pleasantly stimulating tale of love and adventure in the days of SAVONAROLA. The heroine is one _Aprilis_, a fair Florentine whose matrimonial affairs were complicated by the fact that early in the story she had been abducted (strictly _pour le bon motif_ in order to score off the gentleman to whom she was then engaged) by the too notorious PIERO DEI MEDICI. The unfortunate results were twofold, for though _Aprilis_ was returned unharmed to her father's house her noble betrothed would have no more of her, so she had to put up with another husband who took her for charity, and to suffer in addition the pangs of unrequited love for the Lord of Florence whom she was unable to forget. What happened--how the MEDICI were turned from their heritage, and the part played in all this by the grim Revivalist of San Marco--is the matter of a story well worth reading. As is his way with tales in which he appears, the figure of SAVONAROLA comes gradually to dominate the whole; did he not even master GEORGE ELIOT? The present story is dedicated "In Memory of Florence, Summer 1914." Presumably, therefore, Miss BOWEN shares with me certain memories that have been very vividly recalled by her pages--memories of a June evening when, as in the days of which she writes, the Piazza della Signoria echoed to the clash of swords and the tumult of an angry mob. That it has thus reminded me of what would, but for greater happenings since, have been one of my most thrilling chimney-corner reminiscences, is among the pleasures that I owe to a stirring and successful novel.

* * * * *

Among my favourite gambits in fiction is the return to his impoverished home of one who left it a supposed wastrel, and has now lots and lots of money. Personally, if I have a preference, it is that my wanderer should be at first unrecognised; but I am perhaps too fastidious. Certainly I am not going to complain about _Big Tremaine_ (MILLS AND BOON) just because when he came back to the Virginian township that he had quitted as a bank thief his old coloured nurse saw through him in once. There is, of course, Homeric precedent for the situation; it is one that, deftly handled, can scarcely fail of its effect. And the story of _Big Tremaine_ is very deftly handled almost all through. MARIE VAN VORST evidently knows the gentle Southern life thoroughly; her pictures of it have served to increase my conviction that Virginia must be one of the pleasantest places on earth. Not less true and delicate is her treatment of the relations between masterful _Tremaine_ and the gently obstinate mother who turns so slowly from distrust to adoration of her returned son. There are, in short, a great many qualities in this story that I have found vastly agreeable. Also what seems to me one big defect. But as this latter is so far essential that without it there would be no story I am unable further to tell you about it. Still, I am bound to say that its revelation was a nasty shock to my admiration, which had been roused more than anything else by the sincerity and unconventionality of the argument. This is a matter on which you shall pass your own verdict. Mine would be "A Happy Ending committed through unjustified fear of the libraries"; and in view of the charm of her earlier chapters I should discharge the author with a friendly caution.

* * * * *

Most of us might freely confess to some vagueness in our minds as to "the social and economic state of things in the Prairie Provinces of the Dominion," and not a few of us are ready to spend five shillings and a leisure hour or two in finding out for certain, if only to be prepared with a refuge in the event of England being Teutonised. Miss E. B. MITCHELL, the author of _In Western Canada Before the War_ (MURRAY), knows her subject at first hand and deals with the right matter in the right manner for our purpose; that is to say, she is discriminating in her selection of topics and is always pleasant if never violently exciting or amusing in her treatment of them. The book is short, as such books should be; it does not pretend to be exhaustive, yet it leaves a very clear and precise impression on the mind. But (and every intelligent reader will have been waiting for this "but") why on earth should it be called _In Western Canada Before the War_, seeing that it was clearly written without any thought of the present European conditions and would have been published just about this time even if we had been at peace with everybody everywhere? The only reference in point which I can recall is a passing wonder expressed in a few lines as to what, if any, effect Armageddon will have in Canada; this is hardly enough, I fancy, to justify the topical suggestion of the cover. I cannot help feeling that the object of the last three words of that title was less literary than commercial.

_Turk._ "YES--OFTEN!"]

_In the City of Under_ (ARNOLD) shows Miss EVELYNE RYND to have quite a pretty talent in the not unattractive _genre_ of fantastic incoherence something after the pattern of _The Napoleon of Notting Hill_, though in a less robustious mood. But I doubt if talent (however pretty) is altogether sufficient to carry the reader through three hundred pages with no possible clue as to what it is really all about. All the same I do, in justice and most gladly, say that the author keeps one piqued to the extent of wishing to find out; one also loses all suspicion of its being an improving book, and distinctly likes that uncharacteristic Cheltenham boy, _Augustus Clickson_, who helps little _John Hazard_ to find a job. _John_ was very small and ineffectual and engaging, and his V.C. father had left the family wofully ill off, and _John_ felt it was up to him to do something about it. He meets the _Hawker_, who has a comforting habit of turning up at odd moments and assuring people that there's a way out of every difficulty, whereas the old lady, _Mrs. Letitlie_, asserted roundly and frequently that there was none. Then we have a nice wild unpractical Professor and a perplexed archæologist who get tangled in the skein; as also a spy, and, in fact, any old person and thing that occurred to the writer. There's enough good stuff and good humour in this queer patchwork to make me sure that any defect is one merely of form, and I would wager that it was the Notting Hill hero, before alluded to, that was responsible for setting our author on a dangerous path.

* * * * *

_The Seventh Post Card_ (GREENING) was one of a series written anonymously, as harbingers of sudden death, to motor-car drivers whose bad luck or bad management had made them run over a fellow-creature with capital consequences. Capital, also, for helping on the plot of the story; for the sudden death really did come off in such a considerable number of cases that we should have been quite justified in feeling worried when the delightful _Joanna_, driving the car belonging to her equally delightful _Jack_, was unfortunate enough to knock down a tramp; even though the immediate consequences when _Jack_ found her awakening from unconsciousness by the roadside were--well, delightful too, and such as could be expected. Indeed, the sadly-worn word "delightful" seems somehow applicable to the entire string of clues, deductions, inquests, murders and other horrid thrills, or, at any rate, to Mr. FLOWERDEW'S telling of them. Is my capability for melodramatic emotion declining, that I thread this maze of tragic mystery in a mood no more intense than that of comfortable content? Perhaps; or it may be only the soothing effect of the author's clean English, coupled with the conviction that so long as he takes care to keep _Sir Julian Daymont_--the famous novelist-detective--on their side, no serious harm can come to the people we care about most. So, although a really nasty charge of murdering his grandfather turns up against the hero just when things (but for the number of pages left) are beginning to look prosperous, I can defy you to get seriously uneasy about his future; and, sure enough, _Sir Conan_--I mean _Sir Julian_--solves the problem in convenient time to pack the lovers safely off on their honeymoon. And, really, what more could you ask for?