increasing skill and confidence the attack was made, and day after day fresh units proved themselves more than a match for the enemy.”  The result was a series of victories—­Mametz, Contalmaison, Pozieres, Guillemont, Thiepval, Beaumont-Hamel—­and the writer is able to associate with each immortal name the regiments there engaged, all heroes, for “there were no stragglers.”  Indeed, if there is a weakness in the book it is that the insistent recording of the individual heroism of different battalions tends to become monotonous.  But what a fault!  It is a monotony of British valour crowned by a monotony of British triumph.

* * * * *

A point that will hardly avoid your notice in the plot of In the Night (LONGMANS), by Mr. R. GORELL BARNES (now Lord GORELL), is the exiguous part played in its elucidation by the Great Investigator, who (as usual) happens to be on the spot and able to place his services at the disposal of the local authorities.  It is, I suppose due to the Sherlockian tradition these unhappy persons, the local detectives, must always be supplemented by a superior and high-handed expert.  I think, from his preface, that the author does not quite share my own taste in such matters, since he promises that his Investigator shall keep no secrets and observe nothing withheld from the eye of the reader.  So faithful is the author to this undertaking that he practically keeps his expert hanging about with the unenlightened crowd, while another character, in light-hearted amateur enthusiasm, does all the work.  But of course, in a tale of this kind, the only thing that really matters is the one question of spotting the criminal, or who killed Cock Robin.  Naturally I am not going to spoil your fun over this by any officious whisperings.  As you probably know, the one safe rule in such matters is to concentrate upon Caesar’s wife; and even in repeating this antique maxim I may have betrayed too much.  Forget it, and you may find what happened In the Night a sufficiently intriguing problem to provide a pleasant bedtime entertainment that will leave your subsequent repose unimpaired.

In deciding to add to what one may call the fiction of Metropolitan Adventures, whereof The New Arabian Nights may be regarded as both the model and the prototype, the author of The London Nights of Belsize (LANE) has undertaken a task which is both easy and difficult—­easy because a sophisticated style and a lively imagination are the only essential qualifications, and difficult because it involves competition with a perfect galaxy of distinguished authors.  There is always room for more of it, however, and, if Mr. VERNON RENDALL disappoints us, it is not merely because the standard has been set unusually high.  His style is smooth and assured, and, though somewhat lacking in humour, his touch is light and pleasing.  He begins well and interests us in his principal character so that we look forward with zest to the adventures