The Mad Hatter
Heads and Tales, by Aage Thaarup (Cassell, 21s.), is the story of a young man who learnt hat-making the hard way, rose to great eminence in his profession, designing hats not only for all the ladies of the Royal Family, including the Queen and the Queen Mother, but also for the stars of the stage and screen. From this dizzy height of riches, fame, and glory, he became a bankrupt. His anecdotes about the Royal Family will, 1 suppose, interest feminine readers, but I did not find anything very new or revealing in them. Even the accounts of his visits to Buckingham
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Palace when, as he puts it, he 'trod the carpet along corridors lined with portraits Queen Victoria to the apartments of the Que of England!' failed to thrill me. I hoped some kind of anticlimax, but alas, everythi went as had been prearranged, and the Que was, of course, gracious, charming and rea to reveal her exquisite taste! (My exclamats mark.) Mr. Thaarup has a kind word to s for all of his distinguished clients. He war lyrical over Lady Oxford and says, 'Tho patrician features were a challenge, somethi for a milliner to try to live up to.' Poor Mars Asquith—her features were unusual and s was, of course, a Tennant, but 1 would nev have described those features as patrician. one time I saw much of her and have seen expression change from humour to anger ye quickly, but this is the first time I have hea her described as a milliner's dream girl. Ti book is full of illustrations, but photograp of Mr. Thaarup's father, aged nineteen, al of his mother at the same age, both look]] woebegone and grim, also of Aage himself, the age of three, can hardly claim to contribu to our enjoyment of this book.
GERALD HAMILTON
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