Booby

THE CRAZY FOOL--Donald Ogden Stewart--A & C. Boni ($2.00). Since amused friends told Mr. Stewart he was a scream and should set up in the funny business, which he did with The Parody Outline of History (1921), this is his fifth booby book. It concerns Charlie Hatch, who inherited his uncle's insane asylum, organized it with conferences, buzzers and several Department Heads, "made good," won Banker Pratt's ravishing daughter and died a noble death just in time to avert a happy ending. Chuckle production, still profuse, rests chiefly on: 1) The incongruous appearance of old family bywords ; 2) cretinous actions by the characters; 3) obtuse conversations as between one amiable dunderhead and another ; 4) childish horseplay with modern solemnities; 5) feints at coy indelicacy. If the reader at times identifies the author with his hero, that is because, in the funny business, the last, not the first, 100 years are the hardest. It is impossible to be a success at anything, even clowning, and not take one's work a trifle seriously.