NOVELS.
SECOND STRING.*
Second String is one among the first instalment of Messrs. Nelson's new series of .two-shilling novels. The print, paper, and general form are excellent, and show that it is possible to produce a pleasant-looking and readable volume with good type at a cheap figure. Whether there is margin enough for a reasonable remuneration of the author is another matter, upon which we do not feel confident to express any opinion. The price at which he chooses to dispose of his wares is, after all, a"question for the novelist. He and his publisher have a perfect right to ask any sum between a penny and a pound. That the question will settle itself just like other questions of price is obvious.
Mr. Anthony Hope, at any rate, has given full measure in his contribution to the new series. Second String is once and a half as long as many novels sold for six shillings. But it is quality, not quantity, that counts, and in this instance the quality is very good indeed. Yet a greater divergence from the author's adventurous manner it would be impossible to imagine. The scene is entirely laid in a small provincial town or in London, and when the only really energetic character in the story gets a chance of returning to the freer life and more spacious horizons of Canada, he decides not only to remain in London, but to give up the timber trade for publishing ! This decision on the part of Andy Hayes is, in view of his antecedents and character, the least convincing thing in the whole story. But the flesh. pots of the Old Country are so attractively displayed as to weaken the call of the wild. Mr. Anthony Hope, as we know by this time, is an exceedingly persuasive writer, and we can the more readily acquiesce in the inherent improbability of Andy's decision in that it furnishes us with an excellent entertainment.
Andy Hayes, the "second string" of the story, is the son of the Head-Master of Meriton Grammar School, who had married en secondes noces the sister of the local butcher and horse-dealer, thus somewhat compromising his position with the county families. When the story opens, Andy, who fought in the Boer War, and subsequently went to Canada, is home on a visit, combining pleasure-with business. His father and stepmother are both dead, but Jack Rock, the butcher, is very much to the fore.'Artily is no snob, and sincerely fond of Jack, but his position is :.by no means easy. By birth and education he belottiti to 'another class, and the rift is inevitably widened by the friendship and patronage of his idol and hero, Harry. Belfield, the Con. servative candidate for the division. So when Jack Rock offers Andy a certain £500 a year if he will take over, the meat business, we are not altogether surprised at Andy's refusal. Here again we must express our lively admiration for the way in which Mr. Anthony Hope contrives to persuade us, against our natural instincts, that Jack Rock really liked Andy all the better for saying " No." Meantime Andy had managed to make himself not only very popular with, but almost indispensable to, Harry Belfield's set,—to his timid fiancee Vivien Wellgood, who had come to regard him as a sort of policeman; to Harry himself as a political aide-de-camp and general backer, and to Miss Doris Flower of the variety stage, to whom, strangely enough, is entrusted the role of fairy godmother. So when the prospects of the Canadian timber' trade begin to look diaheartening, Miss Flower resorts to an amiable conspiracy for keeping Andy in the country. But the truly astonishing thing is that she does not do this from selfish but from nnnelfigh reasons. She wants to keep Andy as a friend and watchdog and policeman, not only for herself, but for Harry, and .above all for Harry's fiancée. When the reader has got thus far he will have
• Second String. By Anthony Hope. London: T. liaison and Bons. 12s. net.]
probably found out three things,—first, that Miss Flower is the shrewdest and cleverest person in the book ; second, that Andy, so far from being a dullard, is much the most capable of the men ; and third, that Harry Belfield, for all his charm of person and manner, is nothing more than a philanderer. Andy, being of the tribe of hero-worshippers, is the last to discover that his idol is made of clay, but even his eyes are opened. The catastrophe is brought about by the fact that while Vivien Wellgood is in love with Harry, Harry falls in love with her companion Isobel Vintry, whom Vivien's father wants to marry. Isobel, it may be remarked in passing, is by no means guiltless ; but if she succeeds in detaching Harry from his allegiance to Vivien, she is sufficiently punished by marrying a man who is incapable of constancy. Wellgood, the hard anti-sentimentalist, forfeits all sympathy by behaving like a:brute and a boor, and Vivien is consoled by drawing the first prize in the matrimonial lottery,—to wit, Andy; who has now come into his kingdom, and carried to a prosperous issue the candidature from which Harry has ignominiously withdrawn.
Though a good deal of space is devoted to love-making, legitimate and clandestine, Second String is a highly moral tale in that it exalts grit and straightforwardness, and holds up the philanderer to contempt. Incidentally it also shows that an income of £200 a week, the possession of a motor-oar, immense popularity, and perpetual lunches at the most expen- sive restaurants do not conduce to perfect happiness, and that the stars of the variety stage are capable of paying a vicarious homage to the domesticity which their profession compels them to abjure.
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