Transplanted Schoolmaster

UNDERTOW--A. Hamilton Gibbs--Little, Brown ($2.50).

A schoolmaster in a dreary second-rate English school is the hero of this novel by the third of the novel-writing Gibbses. (Major Gibbs's older brothers are Sir Philip and Cosmo Hamilton.) A cup of cocoa made over a gas-jet late at night in his room, an occasional game of billiards at the Pig & Whistle and books hard scrimped for are Schoolmaster Philip Jocelyn's outlets until Millicent, slightly anemic niece of the local bookdealer, comes to help in her uncle's shop. Philip gets himself engaged to Millicent who at once takes brittle command over his aimless, hungry existence. Occasionally Philip has done rough drawings which have sold for a few shillings. So that she can proceed unhampered with wedding plans, Millicent sends him away to sketch for a summer in France.

The warm, easy life in the South of France suits Philip so perfectly that even to himself he becomes Philippe Josselin and as Philippe Josselin he sees nothing strange or wrong about loving Jeanne, the pension-keeper's daughter. The French undertow is so strong that Millicent is forgotten until a telegram reminds him of the wedding three weeks off. He goes back to England, tries to explain his reincarnation to Millicent but she will not release him. He escapes to France, marries Jeanne. But his new-found ego absorbs him so completely that not until she is dying in childbirth does he realize that Jeanne was the heart & soul of Philippe Josselin.

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