The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-02-21

published. They do say that whenever MT Oppenheim is in doubt about any thing he writes novel. That isn't bad idea either if you can sell as many books as MT. Openheim has done.
 The real question, however, outside of MT. Oppenhe elm being in doubt, is what excuse has he? Not very much of one, if you happen to be pressed for quick answer as to his general product.
 But if you should take more time to it, read some, not all, of MT. Op- penheims books, you will be more gentle, more ladylike In your ukase as to his writing proclivities.
 Say, "The Missioner" for instance Some of the books written, and as be- fore advised, worse than that-pub- lished by MT. Oppenheim, are not en- titled to any plea at all in any court of justice; mercy would in some of the cases decline to spread joy or ease. But "The Missioner" is different, much better than most of the other volumes from this author, it is also the latest latest at this writing; one can never tell what day may bring forth in the way of books, when one takes into con- sideration the Williamsons-Mr. F. Marion Crawford and Mr. Oppenheim- and there are others.
 "Wflhelmina Thorpe -Hatton," mis- tress of little village in England, had all kinds of money, time on her hands and muchness of beauty. Wilhelmina had difficult time of it killing time; she was a leader in sassiety Of London wherever she happened to be, In fact, the men fell down and worshiped. MT. Victor Macheson," graduate of OK ford, inherited some $6,000,O00 from an old uncle who had made this fortune on the balls basis. Victor de- cided therefore to ''do good' with this fortune; return it. in so far as he could sensibly to the poor people of England who had really furnished 1t to his uncle by borrowing 1t and paying great interest upon it. Victor was not orthodox in his belief as to religion, neither were some friends of his. who had nothing better to do than worry Victor and these friends organized working concern of their own, "The Missioners"-the members of which should go about and preach enlight- enment to wake up the people. If the missoners found lot of people look ing happy and prosperous, all that sort of thing, the Idea was to see if those people had right to be happy. Were they happy or simply didn't know that they were not happy by rights. and that they should be unhappy if they woke up. You can see the jolt coming to Victor and bis association, can you not?
 Victor went down to the little vil- lage of Thorpe where Wilhelmina Thrope- -Hatton reigned supreme. He asked permission to preach in barn there and was promptly turned down by Wilhelminas land agent. He then appealed to the mistress of Thorpe and the throw down he received from the land agent was not circumstance to the slap on the wrist Wilhelmina gave him. Did that stop Victor? Not at all If not permitted to preach in the barn, there were the streets of the village.
 Now, it must be remembered that Wilhelmina had never been thwarted by man or woman When Victor would not take her word for it that her vfl- lagers required no preaching to, she didn't like it and proceeded to make Victor suffer for his lack of regularity, as we say in politics.
 She had him turned out of his board- ing house, she gave the villagers to understand that whoever harbored Vic tor would be persona non grata around her village. But nothing phased Vic tor he was a young man of spirit. or course as soon as the reader gets along to this part of the book where Wilhelmina is doing all this persecut- ing business, he knows there Is really no need to go further in the novel to find the answer. It would only be nec- essary to see just how it was arrived at. whether by addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. All meth ods were used in "The Missioner" for in stance:
 victor had been kicked out literally from his boarding house. He had with the proper spirit in his heart decided that while 1t was evident he was not very pop ular in the village of Thorpe he would not be completely thrown out, not for the present, so he took refuge in hut on the lands of the owner. She discovered that-did she turn him from there? Noth- ing doing. Victor was standing gazing off into space one night when suddenly beautiful vision rushed up to him, grabbed his face in her two hands, gave him a hearty smack on the lips and disap- peared That was Wilhelmina the naughty one. Did Victor get busy? Not at all. He left Thorpe to return to Lon don
 The story deals with this lovely girl a naughty beauty who in the dead of night went about kissing strange men, and this Victor, who had his duty to perform to- ward men and women, who in turn didn't wish him to work on them. We all know that in time Victor will succumb to love that by rights he should have succumbed earlier in the game, but had he done so the book would of course have been short CT than 1t Is.
 when things or a love character grew on apace, as they will do or are said to do, Victor was struggling against his love for the fascinating Wflhelmina. Wilhel- nina wasn't worried; she knew the an- swer as all women do When the sun had been added or subtracted, as the case may be, then Victor found that Wilhel- nina had made a foolish marriage, and was then tied to a convict who was about to be released from a Paris prison. See the complications?
 They are there all right in this latest book of MT. Oppenheim they reign in all of his books. There is certain knack that many writers of the 'best sellers" have of stimulating the inter est
 When this reader was getting along pretty slowly through a certain portion of "The Missioner" wondering what MT Oppenheim would bring in soon to work him up, hold him, so to speak, to his task, the usual thing happened. Something like this always happens in books of that kind; things are going slowly. The reader must get jolt. In book two people, usually a man and a woman. are talking. The woman says: 'Lovey dovey, do you know Paris?" He does. ''Will you do a favor for me?" He would die in the attempt or be kicked out of the book. q want you then, to go to Paris on tomorrow at 2:30 a. m., visit the corner of Blank and Counterbank streets stand there for two hours, find Charlie Ross, return to me to tell me what Charlie said. will you do that for me?'' He would and does
 Now up to that time in the book Charlie Ross had never been heard of The