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M. HENRI DOMELIER, the author of Behind the Scenes at German Headquarters (HURST AND BLACKETT), must also be accounted among the prophets, for he foretold the invasion of Belgium.  Before the War he edited a newspaper in Charleville, and when the Ardennes had been “inundated by the enemy hordes” and the local authorities had withdrawn to Rethel, he stayed in Charleville and acted as Secretary to the Municipal Commission.  This organisation was recognised by the Germans, but to be secretary of it was still a dangerous post, and M. MAURICE BARRES in eloquent preface tells us of some of the sufferings that M. DOMELIER had to endure while trying to carry out his difficult duties.  The French who remained in Charleville had more than ample opportunities of seeing both the EX-KAISER and his eldest son, and M. DOMELIER writes of them with a pen dipped in gall.  No book that I have read puts before one more poignantly the miseries which the inhabitants of invaded France had to bear during “the great agony.”  For the most part they bore them with a courage beyond all praise; but some few, giving way under stress of physical suffering or moral temptation, forgot their nationality; and these M. DOMELIER makes no pretence to spare.  I think that even those of us who have definitely made up our minds regarding the Hun and want to read no more about him will welcome this book.  For if it is primarily an indictment of Germans and German methods, it is hardly less a tribute to those who held firm through all their misery and never gave up hope during the darkest days.

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I have before now met (in books) heroes who wore dungaree and had as setting an engineer-shop or a foundry, but never one who equalled Jim Robinson (HUTCHINSON) in the strictness of his attention to business. Jim is the managing director of Cupreouscine, Limited, a firm which deals in a wonderful copper alloy which he himself has invented, and the book tells the story of his long and losing fight against the other directors, who are all in favour of amalgamation with another and much larger concern.  Sketched in so few words the book’s subject sounds unattractive, but Miss UNA L. SILBERRAD has a genius for making “shop” as interesting in her novels as it usually is in real life, and Jim’s plans and enterprises and the circuitous ways of the other directors provide material for quite an exciting story.  When I say “other directors,” Mary Gore, representing a brother on the board of Cupreouscine and backing Jim through thick and thin to the limit of her powers, must be excepted.  In spite of her gracious reserve and self-possession, it is plain that Mary loves the busy managing director; but Jim’s feelings are more difficult to fathom.  In fact he is so long in mentioning his passion that it is quite a relief when, on the last page but one, what publishers call the “love interest” suddenly strengthens and their engagement is announced, very suitably and to her entire satisfaction, to the charwoman at the foundry.