FICTION.
THE HUMAN BOY AND THE WAR.* We deal in another column with the schoolboy in war time as interpreted by a schoolmaster. Here we have him depietel by a novelist, who has already specialized in this genre in The Human Boy, with very diverting results, as all who read that exhilarating volume will agree. In one respect Mr. Phillpotts is certainly in accordance with Mr. Male: he makes no effort to show that boys have been altered out of all recognition by the experiences of the last two years. That they think and talk
a argue a great deal about it is beyond question, and these facts furnish Mr. Phillpotts with the materials for most of his sketches. But only in exceptional natures is any nobble change discernible ; it is with the abiding cheerfulness of the human boy that Mr. Phillpotts is concerned ; and he avoids dwelling on illustrations of his personal contact with the realities of the conflict. Moreover, the school where the scene Is laid is not a Public School ; it occupies in numbers and character an Intermediate position. It remains to be added that the point of view adopted by tho author is exclusively that of the schoolboy, and that the narrator changes in each episode. In this way we get a variety of types : boys high and low in the school ; the fighting boy ; the financier ; the sentimentalist ; and VI° " mad " or eccentrio boy ; and the central figure of one episode occupies a subsidiary or even undignified position In another. The masters play an important part in the recital, but solely as they appeal to or repel their pupils. This method demands considerable range of impersonation, but Mr. Phillpotts has been equal to the occasion. Whatever verdict may be passed upon his book by schoolboys, it is full of refreshment and entertainment for middle-aged readers.
Critics of the same age and status as the boys here self-revealed might no doubt discover a few errors in technique ; for ourselves, we are content to confine our fault-finding to the excessively Johnsonian pomposity of the Head-Master, and to the omission of all mention of a school corps, which would surely have existed in so large a school. For the rest, without unduly forestalling the joys of perusal, wo may give some idea of the mature of the entertainment so lavishly provided in these pages. Tho great snow fight in which the vIth were defeated owing to the unscrupulous strategy of the generalissimo of the N'th and IVtli Forms ingeniously illustrates the infectious influence of enemy strategy, while "The Hutehings Testimonial" serves to show the perennial difficulties which besot tho collection of funds by school- toys, no matter how laudable the purpose for which they are destined, lecidentally also it proves, in a meet diver:jag manner, the cla:tgor of relying on professional financiers. In "The Mystery of Forteseue " we learn—what is the truth—that the human English boy, if convinced that he has been unjust, will make amends magneni- measly. Mr. Fortescue was an admirable but impenetrable master who was persecuted with all the diabolical ingenuity of which school- boys are capable for being a shirker, whoa he was really disabled by serious heart delicacy. At last his indifference to criticism was pro- oked beyond endurance, with results in which poetic justice is happily combined with veris:militude. The story of the German boy is a very clever study, though not altogether convincing. Even if he had come back af er the war, one doubts whether he would have proclaimed his loyalty to his country with such frankness, especially as his object was to acquire useful information. Indeed, wo cannot withhold a certain reluctant admiration for his persistence in view of the extremely rough treatment he received before his exit. In some of these episodes the war only makes itself felt in the background, and in none is Mr. Phillpotts's invention more dexterously exhibited than in the un- expected and undeserved victory of Rice, the Irish boy, in his fight with his greatest friend, Sutherland. The motive of the fight shows a sensitive appreciation of the strange psychology of the schoolboy, and the sudden collapse of the better fighter, as readers will admit, does him infinite credit. The Prize Poem is a great tour de force, in the way it mirrors hall-a-dozen typos of schoolboy mind ; but the most exhilarating chapter of all is that devoted to the wonderful entertain meat for the Red Cross, with the trial scone from The Merchant of Venice as the dote of the programme. The sequel must be given in the narrator's words. Mr. Black, it should be explained, was a saturnine gentleman who lived next door to the school, saol who sat out the entire performance without moving a muscle :— " Nct lentil next day did the final stupendous thing happen with old Black. Ile locked over the playground wall just before dinner, as he often did, to make a beast of himself about scmething, and, seeing me sad Westen and another cap cr two kicking about a football, he said to me. Arecu the toy Thwaites ' And I said I was. Then he said. Cense .3Thwaitcs ; I want to speak to you.' Illy first thought was—what had I done ? But as I hadn't had any row with old Flack for two terms, my withers were unwrung,' and I went ; and he took Die into his study, and handed me a bit of pink paper with writing on it • The Hunan' Boy and the War. By Men Philipotta. London : Methuen and Lan4
'What's this, sir ? ' I asked 'A cheque for the Red Cross,' he answered A cheque for twenty guineas, to add to the money from your performance last night.' He was scowling all the time, mind you, and looking as if he hated the show. 'I'm sure it's very sporting of you, sir.' I said to old Black. Not in the least,' ho replied. I laughed more last night than I have laughed for fifty years. And I only paid half a crown—much too little for what I got' I was fearfully amazed. 'Excuse me, sir,' I said, but I didn't tee you laugh once ! No,' he answered, 'and no more did anyone else. When I laugh, I laugh inside, boy, not outside. So do most wise men. Now bo off, and when you next play Shylock, let mo know. If I'm alive, I'll come.' So I went, and we (sheered old Black from the playground. He must have heard us, but he didn't show up. Certainly, taking one thing with another, there are many extraordinary people in the world, and you may be surprised at any moment. No doubt it was one of those cases of coming to scoff and remaining to pray thatyou hear about, bull don't often actually see."
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