黄面志(第十卷)

　　《Literature系列：黄面志（第10卷）》：　　Then David and Vestalia lunch together at the Cafe Royab drinking a bottle of 34A, cooled to 48. And then they go to Greenwich and eat fish. And at last David conducts her to his chambers, and sends her to bed in the room of his absent neigh-bour Linkhaw, supposed to be seeking recreation in Uganda or "maybe in the Hudson Bay Territory." And Linkhaw, in-opportune villain, chooses, of course, this night of all nights for playing the god from the machine. Footsteps come echoing up the staircase. A key rattles in Linkhaw's lock. "Stop that, you idiot ! " David commands fiercely. "Ah, Davie, Davie, still at the bottle," replies a well known voice from-out of the obscurity ; and Linkhaw is dragged by Davie into Davie's den.　　From the advent of Linkhaw the plot thickens terribly, the Cat's play becomes fast and furious First of all, Linkhawisn't Linkbaw but the Earl of Drumpipes, in the Peerage of Scotland.And secondly, Vestalia isn't Vestalia, but Linkhaw's thoroughly bad lot of a wife, whom he imagines cc dead as a mackerel, thank God." And thirdly, she isn't either, but the entirely virtuous niece of Mr. Skinner, who turns out to be a renegade Englishman himself. And Peaussier was only Skinner Gallicised !' Then the question rises, Is Mosscrop a gentleman? Drumpipes, with northern caution, admits that he is "a professional man, a person of education." It is certain, anyhow, that Drumpipes would be blithe to make a Countess of Miss Skinner : she is rich, and she is pleasing. Her Popper is in Standard oil. But there are democratic prejudices against his title, though David reminds him that it is "cnothing better than a Scottish title," and Drumpipes retorts that the Pilliewillies were great lords in Slug-Angus "before the Campbells were ever heard of, or the Gordons had learned not to eat their cattle raw." Whereupon they almost come to blows about the compensation to be paid for a ruined "cmoosie." After some persuasion, however, Mosscrop good-naturedly consents to assume his friend's embarrassment, and rwhile Drumpipes, as Linkhaw, makes love to the dark Adele, Mosscrop, as Drumpipes, arranges a coaching-party, a luncheon, and a tableau-whereof he and Vestalia are the central figures. Then the waiter comes in with the tureen ; and the Cat's play is ended. Voila as the French say, tout.　　Marcb Hares, by George Forth. Who is George Forth? I'll bet half-a-sovereign that " George Forth " is a pseudonym, and that it covers at least two personalities, perhaps three or four. If March Hares is not the child of a collaboration, then my eye-sight is beginning to fail. Who are the collaborators ? Oddly enough, they are quite manifestly members of a group I have never professed to love-they are manifestly pupils of Mr. W. E.Henley. I can only gratefully suppose either that the Master's influence is waning, or that the Publisher's Adviser pruned their manuscript, and the Printer's Reader put the finishing touches to their proofs ; for Brutality is absent. I saw it stated in a daily paper, a week or so ago, that George Forth was Mr. Harold Frederic; but that's a rank impossibility, Mr. Harold Frederic has proved that he can cross Bulldogs with Newfoundlands, that he can write able, unreadable Illuminations in choice Americanese.　　He could no more flitter and flutter and coruscate, and turn somersaults in mid-air, and fall lightly on his feet, in the Cat-fashion of George Forth, than he could dance a hornpipe on the point of a needle. It is barely conceivable that Mr.　　……