* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(By Mr. Punch’s Staff of Learned Clerks.)

Undeniably Mr. CARADOC EVANS is the bold boy.  No doubt you remember (since they are so difficult to forget) the two volumes in which he dealt faithfully (and a bit over) with the manners of his countrymen in the land of their fathers.  I have heard, and can well believe, that some of Mr. EVANS’ own people were moved by this tribute even to the extent of threatening its author with personal violence.  And now he has turned from Welsh Wales to English London, and gives us in My Neighbours (MELROSE) a further collection of sketches pleasantly calculated to prove that the general detestability of his compatriots remains unchanged by their migration from a whitewashed cottage to a villa in Suburbia.  Whatever you may think of Mr. EVANS’ work, whether it attracts or violently repels, there can be no question of its devastating skill.  His sketches, no more than a few pages in length, contain never an idle word, and the phrases bite like vitriol.  Moreover he employs an idiom that is (I conjecture) a direct transcription from native speech, which adds enormously to the effect.  Understand me, not for worlds would I commend these volumes haphazard to the fastidious; I only say they are clever, arresting and violently individual.  Also that, if you have not so far met the work of Mr. EVANS, here is your opportunity, in a volume that shows it at its best, or worst.  Half-an-hour’s reading will give you an excellent idea of it.  At the end of that time you will probably send either to the chemist for a restorative or to the bookseller for the two previous volumes.  Meanwhile, if I were the writer, I should purchase a bulldog.

* * * * *

Mrs. GEORGE WEMYSS has for some time past specialised in spinster-aunts, bachelor-uncles and charming nieces.  In Oranges and Lemons (CONSTABLE) she introduces us pleasantly to some more.  The plot, in fact, is chiefly concerned with the violent squabbles of an uncle and aunt, who belong to different sides of the family, for the good graces of Diana (who is nineteen, or thereabouts, and radiant), and Shant, (who says so—­just like that—­and is five).  There are also several young men.  To test his abilities in the Admirable Crichton line Diana maroons the most favoured of these, together with three other aspirants to her hand, and her bachelor uncle, on an island in a Scottish loch, hamperless, on a soft day.  As the affections of all the lovers remain undimmed, you can guess what kind of a girl Diana must have been. Shant’s even more responsible job is to tumble off a pony and allay the temporary tartness which existed between her two elderly admirers, so that nothing but oranges and orange-blossoms remain.  Really, of course, none of the story much matters.  But if you want the sensation of having stayed with delightful people in delightful places, where rising prices are not even mentioned or thought of, Mrs. WEMYSS can give it you all the time.