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The Significance. Written in a style of Gothic complication and detail, the book possesses, though it does not awkwardly exhibit, a sturdy framework of research and knowledge. It does exhibit many flying buttresses of outside inquiry into the lives of the minor members of the cast (George Germain, General Gates, the Continental Commander Charles Lee) and many gargoyles of antique wit quoted from the talk of the coffeehouses, the clubs, the theatres of the day or from the author's own invention. Praised by many critics, it caused Frank Sullivan, playboy of the New York World, to join the old, outmoded, bedroom school of literary criticism in his admission that the book had caused his boudoir reading lamp to burn long and late. Perhaps an extravagance, a lack of grace in critical compliments implies a lack of capability in the critic, but in this case the grotesque writhing of reviewers is only in one sense unnatural. Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne thoroughly deserves the applause, if not the applesauce, which has been heaped upon it.
The Author may append to his name, Francis Josiah Hudleston, the enigmatic initials O. B. E., C. B. E.; these signify that he is an officer, a commander of the Order of the British Empire. He is also librarian of the British War Office. His first book Warriors in Undress was a snicker at the absurdities of war. Author Hudleston is not without literary connections; Sylvia Townsend Warner (author of Lolly Willowes, Mr. Fortune's Maggot) is his niece; Arthur Machen is his brother-in-law.
FICTION
Train of Tutts
WHEN TUTT MEETS TUTT—Arthur Train—Scribners ($2). The two legal Tutts—Ephraim and his junior partner—appear in connection with The Doodle Bug, The Viking's Daughter, The Meanest Man, The Scarecrow. Then, in When Tutt Meets Tutt, the last story in the book, they fight on different sides of a great dispute about the will of the late Commodore Lithgow. To readers previously acquainted with the legal acrobatics of the two Tutts, it is unnecessary to explain how the elder and more talented member of the firm, aided by the unexpected, scores his point. Such readers will hope that the mind of Author Train, which has already produced, among his other works, Page Mr. Tutt, Tut, Tut! Mr. Tutt, Tutt and Mr. Tutt, will be able to produce an almost endless train of witty, scheming Tutts.
Crude