Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/553

June 9, 1915.

Sergeant.

Young Officer.

Sergent.



, The Flame of Daring, by Harold Spender, is a very unlikely book. Not merely in such little details as that tête-à-tête in which Nathan Bey of the Turkish Embassy describes a brilliant plan of his for dishing the Greek fleet (first Balkan War) to the adorable Greek maiden, Ione Manetta, who was, as he knew, very good friends with Chrysos, the Secretary at the Greek Legation, but also in such really more important points as the description of a fight. Figure to yourself one Jack Harper, a journalist, struggling inadequately with some Turkish ruffian, indeed "barely holding on to him by his coat," and Sylvia, Jack's best girl, conscious of "a pale livid face, dreadful with hatred, and in front of it the fearful searching muzzle of a revolver, moving round as if in search of its prey" (it was the ruffian's face and revolver). Then a flash and a report, and another villain lying supine on the floor with a hole in his forehead. Then a cry of triumph: "Allah, Allah, so perish all traitors!" And then "slowly, it seemed very slowly, that dreadful muzzle moved round towards her father." Before the new "searching" is complete Jack seems to have let go of the coat, for suddenly "the muzzle flew up, and the white drawn face disappeared. Then there was a sound of blows, a silence, and her next vision was that of Jack Harper standing in front of her father." But what kind of blows, and what happened to the white drawn face? Mr. doesn't say. Because frankly he never saw any such fight in his mind's eye and was never cut out for story-telling in this mode. Then again there was that other scoundrel at the Turkish Embassy, who stirred slightly and cleared his throat, then spoke a sentence of twenty words. "It was one of the longest sentences that Chrysos had ever heard from the mouth of Alexander Romas." Yet three much longer appear but two pages earlier—a trivial detail in itself, but enough to prove that Mr. does not realise his characters, has no sort of conviction about them. And you simply cannot help that defect from spreading to the reader.

Of all titles to take the wind out of the lungs of the critic, commend me to Stilts, because this unkind monosyllable practically sums up all I could find to say against Mr. Adam Squire's novel. Therefore its presence causes me to greet him respectfully as the owner of a sense of humour rather quicker than (to tell the truth) I should have gathered from the story itself. Not but what the persons in this book are quite mildly agreeable company. My complaint is that their author has hardly mastered the art of omission. He tells us little at wholly disproportionate length. And while they chat at foreign hotels or order pleasant drinks at their clubs, in a manner that holds as it were the mirror up to nature, the mirror never reflects anything to make them seem more than cheerfully painted dolls. So the story never gets any grip of me. Perhaps, anyhow, there is hardly enough of it. Some time before the curtain rises, Langton, who was a widower with an infant daughter, had married the widowed mother of Constance Tancred. For some reason he had given Constance a pearl necklace that belonged to his first wife, and when the second wife, Constance's mother, also died Langton wanted it back. However, the leading part 