BOOKS ON THE TABLE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22521, 1 October 1938, Page 20

BOOKS ON THE TABLE

SarmieT Butler .... was not then widely known. [Henry Resting] Jones was his prophet. He spread his fame abroad among those whom he thought, worthy of enlightenment. And his way of doing so was characteristic. He simply assumed that Butler was one of the World’s Great Writers, and that you must be aware of this, and would therefore obviously be interested in any trifling details about the great man. Thus he would open proceedings, when you were safely seated in his room and he was pouring out the tea, by saying simply, without connexion with anything that had gone jbgforsr “You know, Alfred said the other day ”or perhaps “Miss Savage, you know, was rather lame.” And then would follow a story, told with many hesitations and divagations, for Jones stammered and had to “manage” his stories a little, of what Alfred or Miss Savage had said or done. New-comer or not you were just supposed to know who Alfred (Butler’s valet-sefcretary-fac-totum) and Miss Savage (his friend, adviser, and sympathiser when he was still struggling in obscurity) were, and if you were going to be a friend of Jones it was necessary that you should be interested in their doings as in those of Butler himself. _ 7 Butler used to come over to Staple Inn from his own roomsin Clifford’s Inn most evenings, and it often happened that when I climbed up to the second floor of No. 1. . . . anxious for a little reasonable conversation, anc knocked at the door, Jones’s face grave, bearded, would appear for a moment behind the half-opened inner door, and be would hold up a finger and shake his head solemnly. “Butler!” he would whisper mysteriously, and as likely as not I would have to go back to my solitary rooms. But now and then, when a little genial conversation was thought to be good for the great man, I was permitted to enter, and even to argue.

From “I Look Back Seventy Years,” by E. H. Lacon Watson. (Eyre and Spottiswoode. 312 pp. 10/6 net.) Mr Watson's memories cover schooldays at Winchester (he was there with Lionel Johnson and recalls his “disconsolate” appearances at compulsory cricket), Cambridge (E. F. Benson, RC. Lehmann. J. K. Stephen, and, of course, “the scfaoolmasterxng (he thinks schoolmasters should always be pensioned off at 40 or 45), literary life in London, an excursion into commerce, travel, wait and journalism. These are not exciting pages, but they are written by a likeable, companionable man, whom it is a pleasure to sit with and hear out.

Some Open Pages

As I sat on the fellside to-day,. every crag, crevice, and track showed , clear ... I longed to fae a David and write a song of praise to the rm*J ning brooks, the glory of the.hilTiV| and all that on them is- I could see i Great Gable, Great End, Bow Feu.,; Coniston Old Man, Scafell, the Lang- ; rfatpg, Red Screes; nearer the grand r “ Troutbecfc valleys while, the little dogs worked and two thou-, ■tand people watched them and fbr-| got the great hills- > Just below me sat a platinum - blonde of about fifty, perfectly dressed, lyith an elaborate coiffurah of multiple curls; on, this vat) perched a very wnaTT and coy hat.'; What might have passed in Bond „ street as attractive was grotesque and artificial on the fellside- In the grey and gaud of the town fifty may -5 camouflage as twenty, but in the . open country fifty is fifty and no mis- _ taking. This lady had two distin-guished-looking men with her; they ' had evidently suffered in her service's for a good many hours, and each 4 was trying diplomatically but re-1 peatedly to leave her with the other, r but she refused to fae left fay either; - They wanted to see the dogs, they--wanted to elimh for a better view; they wanted to get a programme: they wanted local ginger-pcp from the tent; they wanted anything that -. would take them away from her; . but to all suggestions she 'had an answer of three words—“ Couldn't be bothered!” There were a good many thing* she couldn’t be bothered to do, but the one thing she could do* was to- keep two men chained to within an inch of her side for the. whole of a day. She wasn’t a plait--man blonde for nothing.

Next to this trio was a farmer with a face scarred Lias the fell but full of humour. His voice rang clear, and none could help hearing his conversation: “A Jolly neet, last neet; there s n«A Tpretak but we owerdone it a bit, Joe! Hoo did ’ee git on efter ah left tha?” - “Ay, Tnan, ah did badly. Ah gat locked oop. How did tha gif on?” “Nay, ah did warse. Ah gat yam!”* TTt« companion chuckled. “An* t’ ttttssits mell’d** on tha, I supposse.” “She did thaat, an’ she’s na light weight!”

•Home, ••“Mell”: a large wooden maTtet.

From “Shadows on the Hills.”- by Nancy Price. (Allen and Unwin, -320 pp. 5/- net.) This is a new and cheaper Issue of Miss Price's excellent book, first published in 1935. The celebrated actress and producer, art a period of exhausting stress, found herself seeking again the healing peace and strength of the Westmorland hiTTS. Her recollections of this country, once read, are such as the reader win be likely to seek again, to renew the pleasure and the influence of them.

• . •

A very strange accident befell our sister ship Hydra, which, confirms a sea superstition pertaining to ship’s pets. Hydra bad a monkey which had developed disgusting habits in its old age. _ The captain gave orders for the animal to be got rid of at the earliest convenient*. He meant the poor old monkey to be left ashore in the care of some zoo or similar establishment. However, the ship’s cook had other ideas. He was responsible for the welfare of the monkey, and had long developed a violent dislike for it. . . - He committed the monkey to the deep, and all who saw the dark deed expected something dreadful to happen. ... At midnight the flotilla was steaming through the darkness of a pitchblack night . . . suddenly came the sound of a mighty rending crash. ... It was no mine explosion or torpedo. Many searchlights lit up the scene with dazzling beams of light. The Fearless and Hydra had met m a head-on collision. The impact must have been frightful, because the flotilla was steaming at more than 20 knots. The bows of both vessels suffered severely, and it was an ominous scene to those of us who knew about the monkey. . - - The strangest part of the affair was that the Hydra had only one casualty, and he was the ship’s cook. None knew what had become of him. His body was never seen again. -

From “ ‘Aye, Aye. Siff: A Saga of the Lower Deck." by "Cluiker Knocker.” (Rich and Cowan Ltd- 310 op. 15s net. Through Whitcombs ana Tombs Ltd.) Battleships, cruisers, destroyers. patrol-boats, mine-sweepers. “Clinker Knocker” has known them aUchiefly from the stokehold, in a naval service that spread over 10 vears or more, including me whole of the Great War. He was a lively customer; breaches oi discipline furnish the humour and sometimes the sterner stuff cf many of these pages. But he had the intelugence and the quick eye ol a mettled nature, and they have fillec his dock with the interest of hard, dangerous experience, of a kind often enough described but rarely, as here, communicated at first hand. »