The Nerve of Foley Part 22

The scene of Mr. Stockton's novel is laid in the twentieth century, which is imagined as the culmination of our era of science and invention. The main episodes are a journey to the centre of the earth by means of a pit bored by an automatic cartridge, and a journey to the North Pole beneath the ice of the Polar Seas. These adventures Mr. Stockton describes with such simplicity and conviction that the reader is apt to take the story in all seriousness until he suddenly runs into some gigantic pleasantry of the kind that was unknown before Mr.

Stockton began writing, and realizes that the novel is a grave and elaborate bit of fooling, based upon the scientific fads of the day. The book is richly ill.u.s.trated by Peter Newell, the one artist of modern times who is suited to interpret Mr.

Stockton's characters and situations.