Biscuit & Berry*

BIG MONEY--P. G. Wodehouse -- Doubleday, Doran ($2).

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse has been doing it for years, but it is still good. You may think you are completely hardened to this kind of bubbling dialog, practically immune to any further farcical Wodehouse situations; but yours is indeed a stout pair of lips if they do not relax often, part sometimes in a delighted yell as you read this latest Wodehouse issue.

Lord Biskerton, known to his pals as the Biscuit, was son & heir (ah empty title) to the sixth Earl of Hoddesdon. He had red hair, a just discernible mustache, and a determination to die rather than go to work. Biscuit's old school friend Berry Conway, a mere commoner, had faced the facts and taken a job as secretary to Lon don-living U. S. Tycoon T. Paterson Frisby. Frisby talked in barks, luckily be came incoherent when dyspepsia and human folly reduced him to one of his frequent tantrums. Both Biscuit and Berry, dissatisfied with their lot, felt the need of some change. When lovely Ann Moon. Frisby's niece, came over for a London season, and the equally desirable Kitchie Valentine paid a visit to Berry's next-door neighbor, changes came fast & furious. Engagements, false beards, gunmen, a copper mine, burglary, wedding bells are all Wodehumorously manipulated.

The Author. Out of the mouths of Wrodehouse's babes-about-town. his sucklings that roar at you like any Anglo-Indian colonel, have emerged for many a year babblings that have made their author's name a trademark for this kind of humor. Wodehouse fans regard his lyrics for the Oh!-musicomedies (Oh, Boy, Oh, Lady, Lady! Oh, My Dear!) as best of their kind since the late Sir William Schwenk Gilbert's. Wodehouse once wrote five librettos at the same time, for shows that appeared simultaneously. Baldish, florid-faced, 49, he lives in London, but last spring visited the U. S., went to Holly-wood on a new departure: to write for the cinema. With him went his daughter Lenora ("Snorks") who some months prior had tactfully smuggled out from a party two newly-engaged guests who were giving themselves away in front of a concealed microphone (TIME, Mar. 3). Other Wodehouse items: A Damsel in Distress, Fish Preferred, The Inimitable Jeeves, Leave it to Psmith, Three Men and a Maid, Mr. Mulliner Speaking.

*New books are news. Unless otherwise designated, all books reviewed in TIME were published within the fortnight. TIME readers may obtain any book of any U. S. publisher by sending check or money-order to cover regular retail price ($5 if price is unknown, change to be remitted) to Ben Boswell of TIME, 205 East 42nd St., New York City.

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