New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-04-04
England Through French Eyes
Andre Maurois Writes With Keen Humor and
Understanding

by heart and, like the children, stops
the doctor il he misses a sentence or
alters reply.
NO, doctor, no; the naval officer
said to you, When you hear four loud.
short whistles, it means that the ship
has been torpedoed,' and you replied.
And what If the torpedo carries awav
the whistle q"
The colonel had an enormous pas-
sion for statistics. He was forever
asking Aurelle, the French officer in the
book, the initial velocity of a bullet
hrcd from French rife. the length
OF the Marne, or the number of churches
IN Rheims. And yet It came as some
thing of a surprise to Aurelc on the
day that he and the colonel were
trapped in Ypres under n terrific Ge~-
man bombardment to have the colonel
lean over toward him and remark. be-
tween shell bursts. "Messiou, how
many Inhabitants were there In Ypres
before the warp
The Silence Of Colonel Bramble" is
not so much concerned with air raids
ana bombardmonts and trench mortars
as it 10 with the things the officers
talked about at mess. what they ate
and what they drank, which phonograph
records they preferred and what stories
they told after dinner. In this leat
held the Padre seems to have been the
prlze-wfnner with his story Of how he
shot his first lion.
II was at Johannesburg" he began,
and very much wanted TO 1ofn 4 sport
ing club, as number Of tho members
were friends Of nine. But the rules
did not admit any candidate who had
not at least killed lion. SO set out
With niger loaded with several
rifles, and that evening lay in wait
with him near a waterhole where a
ZION was accustomed to como and drink.
"Half an hour before midnight heard
the crashing Of branches and over the
top OF bush appeared the head Of a
lion. He had winded us and looked our
way. 1 aimed and fred. The head dis
appeared behind the bush, but appeared
again after minute. A second shot,
the same result, The brute got fright
ened, hid his head and then put It up
again. remained quite cool; I had
sixteen shots to fire In my various
rifea- Third shot. same old game;
fourth shot, ditto.
Il got unnerved and shot badly, so
that after the fifteenth shot the beast
put up his head again. Miss that one,
him eat u.s. said the niger. I took a
long breath, aimed carefully and fred
The animal fell. Ono second--two--ton
he did not reappear. waited little
longer, and then I rushed out, followed
by my niger, and guess. messiou, what
found behind tho bushl
1.-THE lion, Padre!
"Sixteen lions, my boy, and every one
had bullet in its eye!"
It Is not the province Of a newspaper
book critic to fill his allotted spaca by
stringing together long quotations from
an amusing author. We can only plead
In self-defense that we have had the
strength of mind to leave out the story
Of Captain Frazer and thu masked lady
and the coloneps Comment on the affair
not to mention the story Of the muir,
dsrer and the two clergymen. We dc
not mean to give the impression tina,
"The Silence Of Colonel Bramble" ia one
Of those books which proceeds by hop.
ping from anecdote to anecdota. 1t 1.
a searching and sprtghtly study Of Eng
land as seen through the eyes Of France
and it ia to our mind the m EST amusing
book we have read in at least a month