Elbow-Room ; a Novel without a Plot. By Max Adeler.
Illustrated by Arthur B. Frost. (Ward, Lock, and Tyler.)—This is a book with some good fun in it. Take, for instance, the way in which the author works out the old joke, rather hackneyed and stale, one would have thought, by this time, of savages applying missionaries to a useful purpose for which they are clearly not intended. The experiences which Captain Hubbs, one-legged sailor (as to his other leg, he explains the folks "sawed it off an' 'et it ") imparts to young Mr. Spooner, who thinks of going out as a missionary to the Navigator Islands, are delightful. Captain Hobbs had had some interesting confidences from a chief in those parts. The chief was, in his way, quite an economist. "They had begun," he said, "to depend more on imported goods than on home produce." There was no Protectionist nonsense about him. He frankly avowed his preference for this state of things. "All the folks preferred white meat ;" and missionaries were particularly welcome. He liked them "because they never used rum and tobacco, and always kept their flavour." And be liked them not too old nor too young. Then comes a capital touch,—"' But let's see, what's your age, did you say ?'
am twenty-eight 1"/ think he mentioned twenty-seven.'" He was
not quite the right thing, but sufficiently near to have a good expecta- tion of going off well. Then again :—
" I remember, when I told the chief that there was a whole lot of you chaps studying to be missionaries, he laughed and rubbed his hands, and ordered the old woman to plant more horseradish and onions the following year. Be was a forehanded kind of a man, for a mere pagan. Be said that if they would only give his tribe time, if they would send him along the supplies regular, so's not to glut the market, they could put away the entire clergy of the United States and half the deacons without an effort. He was nibbling at a missionary-bone when he spoke, and the old woman was making a new club out of another one. They are an economical people. They utilise everything."
The sentence we have italicised strikes us as true humour, and there is much which is almost as good in the book.
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