The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-11-28

| that office knew how to open the large
 safe containing the stocks, bonds and other securities of the rich old traveller The manager of this office had not been
 inuusted with all the details of the safe, ciphers of the messages etc., as he thought he should have been, so he is
 rather jealous of things in general and decides that he will get even, so to speak, with the millionaire employer. In his cause the manager enlists a crook, a sec ond story man: the idea being to discover If possible who held the combination to the safe and rob it.
 To go too far into the plot of an Anna katherin Green story would be hardly fair to any prospective reader, for the mystery of them is about all there is to her productions. 1t is only sufficient to say as regards this latest short story, enlarged into short novel,-."Three Thousand Dollars that it has to do with the aforesaid safe that opens in a mys- teitous way. none other in fact than by singing an air from The Magic Flute" into speaking tube in the wall near it.
 Three Thousand Dollars is good detective story, the first from Anna Katherine Greens pen since 1907 and will keep you interested thoroughly for 4o minutes to an hour
 ''The Lords of High Decision" by Mere
 dith Nicholson. Doubleday, Page &
 Co)
 It is such a far cry from those awful (to some readers; this reviewer for in- stance), prettF poor novels, "The House of 1000 Candles,' "The Little Brown Jug of Kildare or "Rosalind at Red Gate" that all os us should really throw up our hats and cry out loudly. .Banzai! when '"rhe Lords of High Decision" ap- pears and Is read.
 This latest story by MT. Nicholson Is so much better, so very superior to any thing he has yet done-there is hope for us yet-even with George Barr Me Cutcheon and Robert Chambers.
 The story deals with the city of Pitts burg; with a rich steel manufacturer, a canting sanetimonious old ass. a widower.' who had son who was exactly the oppo- site from his father and who burnt up the paths of all the Great White Ways he ever heard of or could locate. The old man was long suffering and was proud of his suffering. He marries a young woman, much too young for him, who had unbeknownhst to pape been the sweetheart in days gone by of his son, causing a few complications, of course. The real heroine of the story, a rather wooden creature, who moved about. said things. when as you are like ly to think, MT. Nicholson reached over to pull string, press a button or some lnlnS or OIner, was the SranuQduSlter of a poor but honest coal miner who, of course had been wronged" by the sancti- monious old cad posing member of the great Brotherhood of Man.
 As this story is so very far ahead of anything yet written by MT. Nicholson, 1t doesn't seem exactly fair to say that the ''happy ending he puts to his story never could have happened in 1000 years in real life; that the numerous jolts one is bound to receive in reading the book come in the nature of a street car run ming off the track-all that and more are in '"The Lords of High Decision" But the book is likely to interest you; as one friend said to this scribe: "Oh, yes, 1t Is good enough to kill time with"
 What are "The Lords of High De- cision?' Isn't MT. Nicholson winner on selecting titles to his stories? The lords of high decision, in MT. Nicholson's opin- ion, are the fates, fortune, providence, God, luck-whatever you wish to call them.