My mention of horses and Ireland shows you what he
does with his money, and where. It does not, however, indicate the
result, which is a happy variant upon what is usual in such cases. You
know already, I imagine, the special qualities to be looked for in a
tale by Miss Conyers--chief among them a rather baffling inability to
lie a straight course. If I may borrow a metaphor from her own favourite
theme, she is for ever dashing off on some alluring cross-scent. More
important, fortunately, than this is the enjoyment which she clearly has
in writing her stories and passes briskly on to the reader. There's a
fine tang of the open-air about them, and a smell of saddle-leather,
that many persons will consider well worth all the intricacies of your
problem-novelists. I had the idea that her honest vulgar little legatee
and his speculations as a horse-breeder might make a good subject for a
character-comedian; but I suppose the late LORD GEORGE SANGER is the
only man who could have produced the right equine cast.
* * * * *
The component elements of _The White Rook_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL) may be
summarised in the picturesque argot of Army Ordnance somewhat as
follows: Chinamen, inscrutable, complete with mysterious drugs, one;
wives, misunderstood, Mark I, one; husbands, unsympathetic (for purposes
of assassination only), one; _ingenues_, Mark II, one; heroes, one;
squires, brutal, one; murders of sorts, three; ditto, attempted,
several.
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