al for forbearance for
the shortcomings of the neophyte, or as a warning which a considerate
publisher feels is due to the public, is not for me to say. But the
policy of charging six shillings for these maiden efforts--all that
is required of us for the mature masterpieces of our MAURICE HEWLETTS
and ARNOLD BENNETTS--is open to question. _The Puppet_, by JANE
HARDING (UNWIN), is not without merit, but the faults of the beginner
are present in manifold. The heroine tells her story in the first
person--a difficult method of handling fiction at the best--and in the
result we find a young lady of no particular education or apparent
attainments holding forth in the stilted diction of a rather prosy
early-Victorian Archbishop. The effect of unreality produced goes far
to spoil a plot which is wound and unwound with considerable skill.
Miss HARDING will write a good novel yet, but she must learn to make
her characters act the parts she assigns to them.

* * * * *

We all must be writing books about the War. It is natural enough to
suppose one's own share of war-work is worthy of record, and indeed,
when we come to think of it, the historian of the future will get his
complete picture of the time only when he realises how every scrap
of the national energy was absorbed in the one master purpose. That
being so it is arguable that Mr. WARD MUIR was thinking far ahead in
compiling his hospital reminiscences, _Observations of an Orderly_
(SIMPKIN). One hastens to make it clear that the last thing intended
or desired is to disparage the usefulness or the stark self-sacrifice
of the men who are serving in menial capacities in our war hospitals,
but to tell the truth this account of sculleries and laundry-baskets,
polishing paste and nigger minstrels, bathrooms and pillow-slips, has
not much intrinsic interest about it, nor are the author's general
reflections very different from what one could supply oneself without
much effort. His notes on war slang are about the best thing in
the volume, and I liked the story of the blinded soldiers--feeling
anything in the world but mournful or pathetic--who played pranks on
the Tube escalator; but on the whole this is a book which will be of
considerable interest only to the writer's fellow-labourers. They,
beyond any doubt, will be glad to read this history of their familiar
rounds and common tasks.

* * * * *

_Wanted, a Torto