magic of his native land, lovely and forbidding by turns,
and the charm and simplicity of its people. So when he makes _Ormarr
Orlygsson_ fling away the strenuous work of ten years and a promising
career as a great violinist to return to a pastoral life on his
father's Iceland estates, the step seems neither strange nor
unnatural. So with the perfectly villainous _Sera Ketill_, who at the
culmination of unparalleled infamies suddenly repents and becomes
the far-wandering and well-beloved _Guest_, we do not feel anything
strained in the author's assumption that in Iceland, at any rate, such
things easily happen. _Guest the One-Eyed_ is not a noteworthy novel
in the sense that _Gosta Berling_ was. Yet one would not have missed
reading it.

* * * * *

It is interesting to watch heredity at play. Given the inclination to
write, what kind of a first book should we get from the son of one of
the most cultured and sensitive classical scholars and translators of
this or any day and from the grandson of the painter of the Legend of
the Briar Rose? The question is answered by Mr. DENIS MACKAIL'S _What
Next?_ (JOHN MURRAY), which on examination turns out to be a farcical
novel. The story has certain technical weaknesses, but these are
forgotten in the excitements of the chase, for the main theme is the
tracking down of a coarse capitalist who defrauded the hero of
his fortune and did something very low against England. With the
assistance of a new character in fiction, a super-valet, justice
is done and we are all (except the coarse capitalist and his son)
extremely happy. Mr. MACKAIL has invented some excellent scenes and he
carries them off with gaiety and spirit. In his second book (and for
the answer to _What Next?_ we shall not, I imagine, have long to wait)
he will amend certain little faults, not the least of which is a
tendency to give us the most significant events in the form of
retrospective narrative instead of letting us see them as they occur.

* * * * *

"Bedroom Suite and a reasonable Piano Wanted."--_Provincial
Paper._

It mustn't be "overstrung."

* * * * *

END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume
159, December 1, 1920, by Various

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***

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