Hugo. By Arnold Bennett. (Chatto and Windus. 6s.)—Mr Arnold Bennett
very justly describes his story as a "fantasia," for the plot of Hugo concerns an enormous shop,—a shop so big that it resembles Whiteley's, Harrod's, and the Army and Navy Stores rolled into one and made as exclusive as the establishment of M. Worth himself. The amusement of the book is entirely in the descriptions of what Mr. Wells would call this emporium,— emporium being, according to the author of Kipps, "magnificent" for shop. The business of Hugo's is certainly a triumph of organisation, and Mr. Hugo himself has a right to be proud of it and of the wonderful building in which it is enshrined. Unfortunately, however, the melodramatic story of which the shop is the scene is not particularly interesting, and not at all credible. In using the word credible it is, of course, admitted that Mi. Arnold Bennett does not mean anything in the book to be "credible" as having happened in real life ; but the melodramatic plot is not credible as having happened even in the world of Hugo. The book, in fine, is an amusing skit on the vastness of modern commercial enterprises ; but in it Mr. Arnold Bennett has by no means touched the level of his delightful comedy, "A Great Man." It is to be hoped that some day he will give his readers another story in that vein.
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