The Ways of a Millionaire. By Oswald Crawfurd, C.M.G. (Chapman
and Hall. 6s.)—The title of Mr. Oswald Crawfurd's book suggests that the millionaire in its pages will be found to indulge in all sorts of nefarious practices. On the contrary, the reader will find that Sir Peter Mullen, the plutocrat in question, is the only really virtuous person in the book,—the only person, at any rate, who makes any pretence to having ideals to which he strives to attain. The best parts of the novel are the chapters in which Peter Mullen's early struggles and gradual success in business are described. Once Mr. Crawfurd gets his hero launched in Mayfair the book becomes much less convincing, and the heroine is such a very capricious and inconstant lady that it is impossible to take much interest in her. It is extremely difficult for the reader to keep in touch with this lady's sentimental state of mind, for she is twice a wife in the course of the story, and has, besides, an engagement and an absorbing love affair. So that in taking up the book again after an interval a great mental effort is required to remember to whom the heroine's faith belongs at the moment, and as her heart unfortunately goes on to the next attraction in advance of her faith, even this is not the end of the reader's perplexities. The haute finance of the book is also a little difficult to follow, and the reader's opinion of Sir Peter Mullen's wonderful powers of judgment is decidedly weakened in
the course of his dealings with the Company in the formation of which the story to a certain extent centres. However, with all its faults the book is readable and sometimes interesting. The characters are very fairly definite, and the drawing of " smart" society is not more caricatured than is necessary for pictorial purposes.
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