Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/413

Fond Mother. "Well, good-bye, my dear boy. Take good care of yourself; and, whatever you do, always avoid trenches with a North-East aspect."

Long Furrows (Mills and Boon) is a story that I ended by liking much more than I hoped to at the start. It might have been called a Book for Mothers; I certainly never read a tale more maternal. The special mother of the argument is Mrs. Lane, who lived at Clifton and had a son named Robin and a candid friend named Brenda. The thing starts with Mrs. Lane going to a Founder's Day at Clifton College, and not enjoying herself, partly because Robin would not come with her, partly because she had a foreboding. Which was explained later when she returned to hear from Robin that he had been stealing from the bank at which he was employed, and that there was nothing for him but disgrace and flight. So the two, mother and son, fled together, and, after a tragic odyssey, eventually brought up at a little secluded cove in Cornwall, where in the end happiness found them—I shan't tell you how. Not quite a cheerful book, as you see. Wasn't it Mrs. Cragie who said somewhere that "Mothers are ominously silent concerning the joys of existence"? In a way that might perhaps be the view of Mrs. Fred Reynolds. But not, I think, altogether. The whole treatment of the relations between Esther Lane and her son is very delicate and true. Now I will tell you that what made me think I wasn't going to like the book was the conversation of the Clifton masters at the Speech Day function. Especially one who had dreamy eyes, and, looking at a field full of boys, said suddenly, "What are we doing for them?" Much have I travelled in the realms of pedagogy, but I have yet to meet a schoolmaster who would say things like that. And before a parent too! Fortunately this palpable creation of the lady novelist makes but a fleeting appearance. And the other characters are far more genuine.

I have just read The Salamander (Secker) of Mr. Owen Johnson—a name new to me and one to keep on the select list—and I feel I know just all about one side of that city of surprises, New York. The Salamander is either a native of New York or a migrant thither from a Western State. It is of the so miscalled gentler sex, of any age from eighteen to nominal twenty-five. It plays with fire to the extent of eating it and living on it—that, roughly, is Mr. Johnson's idea. It can (as the saying is) take care of itself. Naturalists observe that it has a long head and a little heart. Quintessentially a cold and dishonest reptile, it offers all and gives nothing in particular in exchange for anything from "bokays" to automobiles. Beginning with male flappers, preferably the young of plutocrats, it later fastens on the plutocrats themselves or their robust enemies. Strong men, at whose nod railroad and chewing gum trusts go quaking, fight publicly over it in equivocal restaurants. Mr. Johnson's particular salamander, Doré by pseudonym, eschews the rigour of the game. She allows herself to be hard hit, and, instead of running away with the hitter, is betrayed by a maternal instinct (with which she has, properly speaking, no business) to take unto herself a young rotter with a determined spark of character glinting behind his eyes, who has for her fair sake fought himself