Books: What Ho!

MR. MULLINER SPEAKING— P. G. Wodehouse—Doubleday, Doran ($2.50).

" 'Here you are, sir,' he said. 'Here's your rat. A little the worse for wear, this sat is, I'm afraid, sir. A gentleman happened to step on it. You can't step on a nat,' he said, sententiously, 'not without hurting it. That tat is not the yat it was.' "

Author Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, in his way, is a master of musical-comedy dialog, especially in the dialect of the stage Englishman of very high or low degree. Mr. Mulliner Speaking is a collection of his sprightly tales: the narrator in each case is the affably reminiscent Mr. Mulliner, who holds forth to his jaw-dropped cronies in the bar of the Angler's Rest. In every case the hero, or the goat, is some pinheaded nephew or vague cousin of Mr. Mulliner's: the vicissitudes related are as improbable and as fetching as the language they are told in. Uncle Cedric, onetime gnu-hunter, all-time bore, is shot by the vindictive Charlotte; Archibald wins a bride by his one accomplishment, the imitation of a just-successful hen; Roland gets into terrible trouble because a snake has been put in somebody else's bed—and so on. When Mr. Mulliner is speaking, no one else can open his mouth—or even wants to, except for the occasional, irrepressible guffaw.

Author Wodehouse, 48, has published 20 or 30 books, he cannot remember which. As well known for his musical comedy librettos as for his books, he once wrote five at once, which were produced simultaneously. He is an Englishman, lives in London. Other books: Fish Preferred, Money for Nothing, Divots, Meet Mr. Mulliner, The Small Bachelor, Carry On, Jeeves.