CURIOUS FANTASY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 39, 15 February 1941, Page 19

CURIOUS FANTASY

The key to "Angels on Horseback," by C. K. Jaegar, is "found in the last three of its three hundred odd pages, and no disservice will be done to author or reader in revealing it: on the contrary. Although we are warned by the mention .of the term "fantasy" against taking the plot too literally, the implication is not entirely a fair one, and it is doubtful if the reader will take that pleasure "in being mad which none but madmen know." The. Prologue is spoken by two "immortals"— Brother Squib and Brother Limbo. Together with Brother Facto, they decide to enter that "other world," performing miracles in. order to justify their "immortality." The scene is transferred to an English village, and the first miracles are vouchsafed to its vicar, poor and unworldly in the best stage tradition. First he finds poultry in his garden, then a cow. The Bishop —prosperous and worldly—again in the tradition, is prevented from following up his suspicions, and the police sergeant is nicely blackmailed to the same end. The poor typist is not only rescued from very unwelcome attentions but comes into money and captures a titled husband. With Jbread and money in the font, the village becomes famous; pilgrimages are made to it. Miracles cannot continue indefinitely, however, or they would cease to be miracles. »Brothers Squib and Facto suddenly betray their humanity by being killed in a thunderstorm, and Brother Limbo, who has been lost, turns up bedraggled and grief-stricken. The door of the lunatic asylum opens to admit him—then closes aga::i.