Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R.D. By " Sapper." (Hodder and Stoughton.
is. net.)—Sergeant Michael Cassidy possesses the happy power of repartee, which reached its zenith in the days of the horse omnibus; but in his telling of stories, as in all London now, there is more of tears than of laughter, with never a touch of bitterness or of sentimentality. We do not know who " Sapper " may be; at all events, he knows what he is writing about, and is not ashamed to deal with the reality of things, to strip bare those emotions which in more conventional times we were taught to hide: and although we do not wish to glorify a little paper-banked book of humour, we are some- times carried away by Michael Cassidy's enthusiasm, by his righteous indignation with the "kinema creepers " who remain at home. Here, in the guise of a conversation in the Under- ground, is the appeal from any fighter to any shirker : "For why have you not been running the same risks as he has done P Why are you not standing in these trenches, with the sound of death in your ears, and the sight of death in your eyes, as a man should stand, if he would hold his head up and count himself a man P . . . He will not again see England—nor a picture palace, nor any of the things he liked—same as you like them; it is no difference at all that there is between you, saving only that be is a man and you are not." Peace to your humour, Cassidy : you speak truth.
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