Vanguard

THE VANGUARD--Arnold Bennett-- Doran ($2.50). The Story. Septimius Sutherland, middleaged, married, meticulous, is preparing to leave Naples for his native London. Packed, he rings for a waiter that he may sup in his hotel room. The bell is unanswered. Septimius descends to the lobby. There he finds the other guests of the hotel in a state of considerable confusion. The entire kitchen staff has gone on strike. Count Veruda (of unknown antecedents) has asked everyone to join him at dinner on his yacht which is lying in the harbor. Some of the ladies have demurred through lack of confidence in the count. One of these ladies, Miss Harriet Perkins, confers with Septimius. Septimius suddenly discovers that he would much like to dine with Miss Perkins. He suggests that there is nothing wrong about a wholesale acceptance of the count's kind invitation. Soon all are aboard The Vanguard, most sumptuous yacht of current fiction.

After dinner, movies are announced to the mild disgust of Miss Perkins and Mr. Sutherland. Quietly they slip on deck and then descend a companionway to explore the ship. They come to the engine room. They discuss the engine. The engine replies by starting to turn over. Miss Perkins and Mr. Sutherland, rightly assuming that the yacht is in motion, are agitated, try to make their way back to their host, find that they are locked below deck. A pretty kettle of fish!

Soon they learn that the other guests have been taken ashore; they are bound for parts unknown on the gorgeous Vanguard.

Then they meet the real owner of the ship, Lord Furber of Author Bennett's beloved "Five Towns," rich beyond reason. Count Veruda has been merely an instrument of the moment, used to entice Miss Perkins, Mr. Sutherland, or both into his gruff old master's clutches. Follow many pages of mystery while Lord Furber, Mr. Sutherland, and certain members of the crew vie for the nimble Miss Perkins' favor; eventually comes to light Lord Furber's motive. It seems that Mr. Sutherland holds an option on Lallers, famed dressmaking establishment; that Lady Furber has had dealings with Lallers in a manner to make her husband acutely covetous of the option; that Mr. Sutherland has been abducted in the hope he will listen to his host's chequebook; that Miss Perkins is an innocent victim of circumstances. A garbled press dispatch is printed in London and meets the eye of Lady Furber. Lady Furber, being a woman of some decision, reaches Monte Carlo almost immediately, boards the yacht, and rings down the curtain a very few pages later.

The Significance. Author Bennett has written what he calls a fantasia; mainly for his own amusement, one suspects, though the element of finance may have some place in the picture What he has achieved is a novel which belongs distinctly in the featherweight class, employing a preposterous plot and progressing to an unimportant little climax. Occasional flashes of humor are obscured by the ponderous attempt to make the whole affair very funny indeed. Only the author's acknowledged facility with the pen saves Vanguard from being spoken to quite sharply. The Author. Enoch Arnold Bennett, 60, was born near Hanley, England-- the "Hanbridge" of his familiar "Five Towns." With a limited education, he descended as a youth upon London and at 21 obtained a situation as a solicitor's clerk. Ten years later his first novel, A Man From the North, was published and, as he puts it, yielded profit sufficient for a new hat. A prodigious worker, he was soon evolving the printed word at a tremendous rate, Vanguard being the 62nd volume to bear his name. His best-known and perhaps most successful effort is The Old Wives' Tale, 1908.