VERY SECRET SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 79, 30 September 1933, Page 22

VERY SECRET SERVICE

.In "Water on the. Brain" Compton Mackenzie pokes' fun at all possible 'branches of the Secret Service and other intelligence, work. The trouble with Major Arthur Blenkinsqp (retired) is that his work becomes almost too secret. Naturally, ho is-much pleased when the opportunity comes his way to serve his country again and be paid for it, but it is unfortunate for him that he should not only be taken for an enemy agent by a rival branch of the Intelligence but for a, monster of unfaithfulness by his wife, who, of course, can hardly be expected to believe in his story of a sudden incursion into the banana trade. ■ She, indeed, is hardly to be blamed, for the impressionable Major is found more than once with tho beautiful Renata (from Mendacia, which is hoping for the return of its King) in a fashion-1 able Scottish' hydro. Speedily the wife puts a private inquiry agent on to hisj tracks, and does not, of. course, inform'! any branch of the Intelligence what she has done. In consequence the private inquiry agent, the poor Major, two or three real Secret Service men, an innocent outsider, and a real vender of bananas become mixed up in about as I glorious a muddle as you could wish for. Very secret gentlemen, who must always be known by their initials only, go nearly mad with worr^, coded mes--sages are given meanings which their senders never intended them to possess, and in general no branch of Intelligence, British or foreign, is allowed to shine in this Tiighly diverting, if grotesque, title.