Evening star., 1921-03-13
Reviews of New Books

| ries as whole. these intense mo-
| mentS sum to a common sense o!
| disappointment that the promised
land of America is not land moving
| with milk and honey. not land or
| plenty in food, in play. of plenty IN
everything of which the old world
was. to them. SO lamentably barren.
Each. worked out in vivid SINGER
ity, is. in effect, a protest against
| the reality that stands so sharply on
in contrast to the dream. Neither
the author. herself of immigrant
stock. nor the new settler appears to
realize that the immigrants way of
huddling together in racial units in
, is the real barrier to the larger and
freer life. In these stories the op-
preSSors-landlordS shopmen. en-
ployers-are. in the main. of the i'm
! migrant tribe. already established
and emulating as we'll as conditions
permit the tyrannies in which they
were bred That the stories are pas
sionately sincere and vivid is with
out question. That their ironies are
rightly sourced is not so clear. In the
marked degree to which they faith
fully reproduce the character and
outlook of one group of alien citizens
they are as illuminating as their
clear artistry is admirable.
THE GIRL IN FANCY DRESS. By ].
+. Buckrose, author of Young
Hearts, etc. New York: George H.
Doran Company.
Mrs. Buckrose here offers very
engaging romance on the common
situation of mistaken identity. How
could the WalgroveS know that the
oddly bedecked creature at the door
was the expected heiress. whose easy
circumstances they had already picked
out for their only son? They were
waiting. also, for an impecunious
young cousin, who might easily have
looked like this. The girl. overhear-
ing some of their free family talk.
failed to mention the accident that
led to this borrowed gear. Instead
she decided to play the role that the
Walgroves themselves had assigned
to her. Such is the groundwork of
this pleasing little story of young
folks falling in love, getting mar
ried and living happy ever after. The
son turns out. of course. to be a real
fellow. in spite of his parentage. and
any other little difficulty fades away
under the plant hand of this prac-
ticed writer. \ good story of easy
lines and unexacting spirit.
IN THE ONYX LOBBY. BY Carolyn
Wells author of "Faulkner's Fol-
ly." etc. New York: George H. Do
ran Company.
A jealously guarded recipe for the
making OF bu,s-the famous English
Kinney bunS-Serves as motive for the
murder ~around which this rather
laughable coil of detection circles.
One is not quite sure whether this
detective story should, or should not,
take it's place alongside of stephen
Leacocks Nonsense Novels" 1t COM
ports itself seriously. But Carolyn
Wells is by nature a humorst. There
fore one is bit suspicious. How
ever. the action moves along under
the shield of Sir Conan Doyle him
self, a complete Sherlockian adven-
ture wherein applied science 90 is
turned to the uses of criminal in
vestigation. The question is, "Who
Killed Sir Herbert Binney?" Though
old enough to know better. Sir Her
bert was a good deal of a Lothario.
So. one of those dazzling Broadway
birds o the night might have done
for him. Again, either one of two
women. clinched in an endless feud.
might-just possibly misht-have
done it. After much scurrving about
between these two possibilities, the
buns begin to rise as another pos
sibiiity. And by and by. when ther"
has been enough excitement to fill
a book. and. meanwhile. to mature
a romance, it turns out to have beer
the buns. after all. with money-mind-
ed men as the murderers. despite Sir
Herbert's dying statement that
women did this"