I was, I confess, a little sceptical—­you know how it is—­when I read what Messrs. HODDER AND STOUGHTON’S official reviewer said of Mr. HAL.  G. EVARTS’ The Cross-Pull:  “The best dog story since The Call of the Wild,” etc., etc.  Well, I certainly haven’t seen a better.  Mr. EVARTS’ hero, Flash, is a noble beast of mixed strain—­grey wolf, coyote, dog.  The Cross-Pull is the conflict between the dog and the wolf, between loyalty to his master and mistress whom he brings together and serves, and the wolf whose proper business is to be biting elks in the neck.  Happier than most tamed brutes he is involved as chief actor in a round up of some desperate outlaws, among whom is his chief enemy, and he is fortunate enough to serve the state while pursuing to a successful end his bitter private quarrel.  Brute Brent gets and deserves the kind of bite which was planned by a far-seeing providence for the elk....  You can tell when an author really loves and knows animals or is merely “putting it on.”  Mr. EVARTS understands, sentimentalises less than most interpreters; seems to know a good deal.  The story loses no interest from being set in the American hinterland of a few decades ago.  All real animal lovers should get this book—­they should really.

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If it be true art, as I rather think someone has said it is, to state what is obvious in regard to a subject while creating by the manner of the statement an impression of its subtler features, then Mr. PERCY BROWN, in writing Germany in Dissolution (MELROSE), has proved himself a true artist.  For in Germany about the time of the Armistice and during the Spartacist rising certain things happened which got themselves safely into the newspapers, and these he sets forth, mostly in headline form.  Beyond this Germany was a seething muddle of contradictions and cross-purposes, which, it is hardly unfair to say, are capably reflected in his pages.  Mr. BROWN is a journalist of the school that does not stick at a trifle, a German prison, for instance, when his dear public wants news.  His crowning achievement was to persuade Dr. SOLF, when Foreign Minister, to send through the official wireless an account of an interview with himself, which would, as he (SOLF) fondly hoped, help to bamboozle British public opinion.  When the article appeared, so well had the author’s editor read between the lines of the message that the journalist had to run for his life.  He was particularly fortunate too, or clever, in getting in touch with the Kiel sailors who set the revolution going, but in spite of much excellent material, mostly of the “scoop” interview variety, nothing much ever seems to come of it all, and we are left at the end about as wise as we started.  All the same, much of the book’s detail is interesting, however little satisfaction it offers as a whole.

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