Mr. Chips & Chaps

HOUSEMASTER--Ian Hay--Houghton Mifflin ($2).

Many a friendly shade haunts the pages of Housemaster: P. G. Wodehouse, Rudyard Kipling, James Hilton's Mr. Chips himself. Author Ian Hay (John Hay Beith), a schoolmaster who turned soldier when his king & country called, wrote Britain's first War best-seller (The First Hundred Thousand), has written 22 books, all of them displaying a school- masterly healthy mind. His latest, a cheery tale of big doings at an English boys' school, is served up cool but crisp, with a slight sogginess inside, like British toast. Housemaster should please the large U. S. audience of Anglophiles. Worst thing anyone could say about the author and its creatures is that they are all good chaps.

Mr. Donkin, a senior housemaster at Marbledown School, was far from wearied by his long years of welldoing, asked nothing more of fate than another decade or so in harness. An excellent pedagog, he had his little weaknesses, such as the daily crossword puzzle in the Times, and his old-bachelor devotion to the faded girl's photograph on his mantelpiece. (She had married a dashing artist, mothered four children, died.) His boys were devoted to Mr. Donkin, but Marbledown's new Headmaster was not, considered him an old-fashioned obstructionist nearly ready for the pruning knife. All unaware of his danger, Mr. Donkin carried on, up holding the tyrannical dictates of the Head in public, in private shaking his wiser head. When his lost love's daughters descended on him for an indefinite visit, Mr. Donkin's position was further complicated, for two of the girls were old and pretty enough to set adolescent boys on their ears; the third was a tomboy tare who always fell on good ground. All meant well by Mr. Donkin, whom they adored, but their good intentions merely paved the way for his high-principled enemy's attack.

When the Head overreached himself by abolishing the school's most cherished holiday, it was all Mr. Donkin could do to control his muttering minions. It was more than he could do when his feminine wards took a hand in the revolt. Triumphantly the Head proclaimed a check mate; sadly Mr. Donkin acknowledged it. prepared to quit the field like a man. At the last moment, by literary chicanery worthy of P. G. Wodehouse, the day was saved for everyone concerned.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.