NOVELS.

THE CHRONICLES OF CLO'VIS.•

SHORT stories written for newspaper consumption, especially when they are as short as " Saki's," do not always stand the

test of reprinting. But we are glad to see this collection of tales and sketches, though we could well wish two or three away. Mr. Munro has an extraordinarily freakish fancy, a witty pen, and great skill in depicting certain types of fashion- able pleasure-hunters of the day. He is often extremely funny, but he is hardly ever genial, and occasionally his fun is shot with a strain of cruelty which makes one laugh "with alien jaws." The alternation of wild extravaganzas with grim studies such as that of the revenge of Pan—a study in the manner of Mr. Maurice Baring—or the fate of the prodigal

son's double or the coward-hero is somewhat disconcerting, though Mr. Jacobs has shown us that the same pen can excel in the mirthful and the macabre. None the less they might

well have been reserved for a volume of less prevalently farcical character. Clovis, the high-priest of these revels, who lends a unity to the book, does not figure in these sombre intermezzi at all. Their inclusion, however, is an arguable point. What we cannot swallow is the unnecessary heartlessness of the author's reference to children. It may be due to thought-

lessness; if not, it is a fatal blot on an otherwise delightful talent. Mr. Munro's nomenclature arrides us greatly. His names, such as Constance Broddle,, Lady Blemley, Miss Mebbin, Loona Bimberton, Motkin the butler, and Septimus Brope, sound like slightly insane versions of the names in Mr.

Henry James's novels. But Mr. Munro does not merely coin names ; lie is a first-rate phrue-maker in the extravagant vein. Let us take a few examples.

Of a distinguished Anglo-Indian :- " He could talk sense to a peevish cobra in fifteen native languages, and probably knew what to do if you found a rogue elephant on your croquet lawn, but he was shy and diffident with women."

Of a disappointed miracle-worker :— " An archangel ecstatically proclaiming the millennium, and then finding that it clashed unpardonably with Henley and would have to be indefinitely postponed, could hardly have felt more crest- fallen than Cornelius Appin at the reception of his wonderful achievement."

Of the indignation of the Grobmayer family :— " It was like one of the angrier Psalms set to Strauss's music."

Of an amiable worldling who had three thousand a year and a taste for introducing impossible people to irreproachable cookery :— " Like most men who combine three thousand a year with an uncertain digestion, Lucas Croyden was a Socialist, and he argued that you cannot hope to elevate the masses until you have brought plovers' eggs into their lives and taught them to appreciate the difference between coupe Jacques and Macedoine de fruits."

Clovis:8 suggestions for an unrest-cure :-

"_ Well, you might stand as an Orange candidate for Kilkenny, or do a course of district visiting in one of the Apache quarters of Paris, or give lectures in Berlin to prove that most of Wagner's music was written by Gambetta."

Of Cassandra :—

" Cassandra was a sort of advance agent for calamities. To know her was to know the worst. Fortunately for the gaiety of the age she lived in, no one took her very seriously."

Mr. Munro's fooling is largely irresponsible. He is not a true social satirist, because he does not hold up his smart " wasters " to ridicule ; he rather enlists sympathy with them for their resourcefulness and wit. Still, there is a meaning and a point in his flippancy. The fable of " Hermann the Irascible," showing how a benevolent monarch cured the advanced women of their longing for the franchise by render-

ing its exercise compulsory, until their battle hymn came to be " We don't want to vote," is a case in point, and

there is some sound criticism in the tragedy of music at meal-times told under the title of " The Chaplet!' Best of all, however, is the admirable absurdity called " Filboid Studge," in which Mr. Munro pillories our sub- jection to the sheer force of advertisement. Mark Spayley, who had revived the drooping fortunes of Pipenta by re- christening it " Filboid Studge," bad grasped the fact that

• Th. Chronicles of Clovis. By H. H. Munn) (" S.ki "), London: John Lam. Via.]

people will do things from a sense of duty which they would never attempt as a pleasure :— " And so it was with the new breakfast food. No one would have eaten Filboid Studge as a pleasure, but the grim austerity of its advertisement drove housewives in shoals to the grocers' shops to clamour for an immediate supply. In small kitchens solemn pig- tailed daughters helped depressed mothers to perform the primi- tive ritual of its preparation. On the breakfast-tables of cheerless parlours it was partaken of in silence Once the womenfolk discovered that it was thoroughly unpalatable, their zeal in forcing it on their households knew no bounds. ' You haven't eaten your Filboid Studge ! ' would be screamed at the appetiteless clerk as he hurried weariedly from the breakfast-table, and his evening meal would be prefaced by a warmed-up mess which would be explained as your Filboid Studge that you didn't eat this morn- ing.' Those strange fanatics who ostentatiously mortify them- selves, inwardly and outwardly, with health biscuits and health garments, battened aggressively on the new food. Earnest, spectacled young men devoured it on the steps of the National Liberal Club. A bishop who did not believe in a future state preached against the poster, and a peer's daughter died from eat- ing too much of the compound. A further advertisement was obtained when an infantry regiment mutinied and shot its officers rather than eat the nauseous mess ; fortunately, Lord Birrell of Blatherstone, who was War Minister at the moment, saved the situation by his happy epigram, that 'Discipline to be effective must be optional.'" For pure absurdity nothing is better than the story of the commercial traveller, who had a priceless work of art tattooed on his back, a burden which led to international complications. The " Recessional " and " The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope "—the latter is a variation of a theme by the late W. S. Gilbert—show Mr. Munro to be an accomplished parodist of the serious preciosity of the minor poet as well as of the fatuous sentiment of the royalty ballad-writer.

We have two final words of advice to the reader. This is not a book to be read continuously, and it lends itself exceed- ingly well to reading aloud.