The Equinox (Volume I, Number IV)

THE EQUINOX a “Péche Melba”? You are not a “trivial” Mrs. Warren; what do you mean by “plumping down” before me this “little bit of fluff”? Now don’t be too bored or too serious, Joseph, be a good fellow even towards those who are unlike you, for a good heart is worth a dozen good heads and heaven only knows how many bad ones. Eat your “scoff” and enjoy it; give the girl a kiss—even if among the boats; and shake hands with the Chaplain— after all he probably agreed with you over the Boulter Case. Here surely is a link between you! Drop the “insufferable” and the “Christmas-card-curate” description of him, use your tea-spoon like an ordinary decent Christian and don’t empty the sugar basin, shake hands with him, my boy, shake hands with him, and try and be a real good fellow, Joseph, a real good fellow, as well as an indifferent evolutionist! A. QUILLER. WITH THE ADEPTS. By FRANZ HARTMANN. William Rider and Son. If you have never been to “The Shakespeare” or “The Elephant and Castle” please go; for, for the same price that you would pay for this book you will be able to obtain at either a good seat. Go there when they are playing“ The Sorrows of Satan,” and you will have no need to be “With the Adepts” of Franz Hartmann. Besides, if you are not amused by the play the back of the programme will surely never fail you. There you will learn the proximity of the nearest “Rag Shop” where old bones, scrap iron, india rubber and waste paper may be sold; and should you, like us, be so unfortunate as to possess a copy of this story, may with a little persuasion induce the ragman to relieve you of it. Besides, it will also tell you where you can obtain “Sausage and mash” for two pence—and who would not prefer so occult a dish to a “bun- worry” with Sisters Helen and Leila? From page one to one hundred and eighty this is all warranted pure, like the white and pink sugar mice on a Christmas tree—quite wholesome for little children. Not only can you meet the Adepts but the Adepts’ “lady friends”; you might be in Bloomsbury, but no such luck. Polite conversation takes place upon “advanced occultism,” which strongly reminds us of the pink and paunchy puddings of Cadogan Court. The lady adepts are bashful and shy, but always very proper. The Monastery might be in Lower Tooting. The hero asks silly questions so as to give the Adept the requisite opportunities of making sillier answers, “I was rather reluctant to leave the presence of the ladies . . . the ladies permitted me to retire.” Outside bottles full of this sort of occult Potassium Bromide, this novelette is eminently suited as a moral sedative for young girls when they reach sixteen or thereabouts and are beginning to wonder how they got into this funny world. 334