5 APRIL 1930, Page 30

'MRS. CLUTTERBUCK • LAUGHS. By Guy Pocock. (Dent. 7s. 6d.)—Mrs.

Clutterbuck hardly did anything else. She was the capable, managing widow of a north country business man and - all • her dominating, organizing abilities in the quiet village where she had settled were accompanied by monstrous and -vacuous peals rendered mysteriously by the author : E-e-e-eryah l ' _ She laughed at the clergyman and his wife, the local spinster,. her niece, the butcher, love affairs, garden parties, illegitimate babies and her own departdre to the West Indies with her son, but it is highly doubtful if the reader will endure her horrible morbid merri- ment to .the end. ',Let him be warned, hcisiever,• by the fate of Dr. Rally, the delicate, " understanding ". figure who saw tragedy where Mrs. Clutterbuck saw farce, for he faded away, and died. .In justice to .the lady it must be said that' she was immensely popular in the village.