A BAKER'S DOZEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19720, 20 August 1927, Page 7 (Supplement)

A BAKER'S DOZEN.

ARNOLD BENNETT'S LATEST.

Arnold Bennett is one of that fortunate band to whom the realisation of their early ambitions brings nothing of satiation, that canker in the flower of prosperity. lie is still eagerly in love with the sensuous sido of life, good food, rare wine and all the other good things that money can buy. This gusto in the enjoyment of the fruits of material success will delight some readers and disgust others. " The Woman Who Stole Everything," the first story of the book, to which it gives the title, is the study of a modern woman —though her type is age-old—who, knowing nothing of loyalty, honour, or decency, lives frankly for the pleasure of the passing moment. Such a type might well be the study of any great novelist, but in the approach to it the author's own character is made manifest. Such a study would only emphasise the underlying purity and austerity of Galsworthy: it reveals the essential earthiness of Arnold Bennett.

" Death, Fire and Life" is the best of the collection—an exquisitely humorous story of Mr. Curtenty, of the Five Towns, who had held in his time such posts as " watchman, doorkeeper, timekeeper, inspector—posts which meant doing nothing with dignity." At sixty ho finds himself out of a job with no prospects but that of eating the bread of dependence in the house- of his son-in-law. Very calmly he makes up his mind. A tenpenny dose of poison—this was in the less inquisitive days of the 19th century—will remove him from the reach of all sordid cares. So he enters the chemist's ; makes his purchase, but just as he is signing the poison-book, the shopman says, " One and twopence, please." Angered at this iniquitous charge he throws the stuff back on the counter. On his way through the silent streets his trained senses detect a smell of burning in a Jarge warehouse. Giving the alarm he proceeds to empty sand upon the flames and when the fire-brigade—and the owner—appear the danger is over, for both the building and Mr. Curtenty, who, as a mark of gratitude, is given the post of night-watchman. He goes off to the nearest fried-fish shop, and feasts gloriously out of the tenpenco he had brought with him for another purpose. Then home to his wife with his heart beating and " a half pleasant, halffrightening disturbance in his mind, or his soul, or somewhere. It might nave been the realisation of the dread fact that but for the accident of a fire ho would at that moment have been elsewhere or nowhere at all and nothing at all. On the other hand, it might be duo to alarm at his own reckless expenditure in the fried-fish shop". . . If only the author would keep to his Five Towns and his Mr. Curtentys and leave the beauteous Cora Usshers to those who can do nothing else!

[" The Woman Who Stole Everything, And Other Stories," by Arnold Bennett (Cassell).]