OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.) Little Thank You, which Messrs. PUTNAM publish for Mrs. T. P. O'CONNOR, is a charming idyll. It presents a sunny picture of Virginia after the war, but at a period so close to the epoch-making event that we catch many glimpses of home life in "ole Virginny." The hero of the story is a small boy who, after the occasional manner of his kind, dominates the domestic circle of which he is the centre. It would be easy to make such an one a persistent bore. Mrs. O'CONNOR handles her subject so gently and with such skill that the reader, inclined at the outset to be repelled, is conquered, and pays court with the rest. The characters in the little drama are few, but without exception are admirably drawn. The old negro nurse, probably taken from life, is delightful. Jimps, the dog, is in his way equally good. It is the sort of book that is especially attuned to the Christmas mood. Those who did not find the opportunity of reading it in the already passed holiday-time may take my word for it that its perusal will brighten the New Year. One of the most agreeable entertainments that I have encountered this great while is The Unbearable Bassington (JOHN LANE). By now one has, of course, grown to expect verbal dexterities from Mr. H. H. MUNRO ("SAKI "), and in the present volume one certainly gets them, and something more. The book is in fact a pudding in which the greatest possible number of plums are held together by the barest modicum of suet-with the natural result that, taken in bulk, the mixture may be found cloying. In small portions, say three chapters to a meal, you can not only enjoy it delightedly yourself, but even compel the appreciation of those to whom you will be unable to resist reading the choicest bits aloud. Than this, of which I have made personal test, there can surely be no greater tribute to such a book. Only considerations of space restrain me from quoting its best things now. There is one chapter that contains the most brilliant exhibition of conversational fireworks since The Importance of Being Earnest. But inevitably they are of different degrees of sparkle. Not only does one get the rather mechanical humour which describes a man's and the odds and ends of people who are involved in Erica's beard as "lending a certain dignity to his appearance affairs. The hapless Tom Garry, who married her, is less -a loan which the rest of his features were continually convincing, being a trifle too stagnant for a young Guardsrepudiating," but on the same page we read, "One should man; but he is a good enough background for the finelyalways speak guardedly of the Opposition leaders; one never shaded picture of his wife. As so often happens in real life, knows what a turn in the situation may do for them," one thing after another occurred in their existence; and with the added remark, in reply to obvious comment, "I again, as so often happens in real life, these incidents were mean they may one day lead the opposition." This seems just incidents and led up to no particular crisis or dénoueto me the genuine article; and, if you like it, and ever so much more that at its worst is always smart and at its best witty, you will find with me The Unbearable Bassington very bearable indeed. Friend (to infantry officer who has been trying to pass riding test for promotion). "WELL, PASSED ALL RIGHT, I HOPE?" No; SPUN, CONFOUND 'EM! THEY BROUGHT THE WRONG HORSE." There can be no question about it, Mrs. HENRY DE LA PASTURE (Lady CLIFFORD) has made a very delicate and telling study of her Erica and the down-trodden Lady Clow, ment. They were interesting in themselves, severally and apart, and in the telling of them the author, as shrewd and observant as ever, finds many an opportunity of expounding her simple and genial philosophy. Meanwhile, Tom Garry bore with his wife very patiently for a while, lost his illusions of her one by one, and ultimately died before the birth of his son. And there you have Erica (SMITH ELDER). There are those, and I am one, who look for a plot in a i 66 novel. Something momentous must happen, be it the and here and there, it may be hinted, the writer has taken expected to fulfil our hopes and fears, or the unexpected to his task too seriously, and has attributed too great an surprise us. The only critical event in Erica's career is the importance to mere trifles. In spite of that, however, there dissolution of her engagement to Christopher Thorverton, is a general liveliness in the narrative which makes his book and that is prior to the period of this history. Thus, when very readable. Still, I am bound to say that that part of the book ends practically in the middle of a conversation his first chapter in which he discusses the ethics of the sport and certainly in the middle of things, I am not consoled and tries to rebut the charge of cruelty does not strike me as with the "Note:-The Author hopes in a later volume to a very convincing piece of work. To say, as he does, that give the further history of Erica and her son," and it is "it is very questionable whether animals experience pain," possible that I shall not read that later volume, unless I is an absurd and mischievous piece of overstatement, which have reason to believe that it will excite my emotional as would justify a demand for the repeal of the laws directed well as my intellectual approval. against cruelty to animals. I must not conclude without mentioning a memoir of W. E. CURREY, the founder of the To read RALPH CONNOR on Western Canada and the pack, delightfully written by Professor HENRY JACKSON. heroic routine of that fine service of the North-West Elsewhere will be found some anecdotes of Mr. RoWLAND Mounted Police is to feel young and adventurous and HUNT, M.P. (then nicknamed Mother"), which show imperial at too small a price. The author has a flair that he did not always wear that air of Boadicean gravity for all that is keen and clean and strong in football or love which now marks him in the House of Commons. or war, and a deep and simple religious faith and feeling underlie his outlook upon life. Corporal Cameron (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) was a Scottish International half, who lost a certain match through diluting his training with whisky, and was coming to no good in the Old Country. He finds "a man's work"-"riding on a horse and ordering people about " (as young Reggie Kennion defines it in The Younger Generation)in the Mounted Police after some tough and toughening experience on a farm and in a survey gang. Raven, the whisky-runner and horse-thief, is a rare specimen of the hero-black- MY LAST STARRING TOUR IN 1893." guard, and Cameron's The only complaint I have to make against The Happy Warrior (ALSTON RIVERS) is that Percival, its hero, ought to have been born before page 93. Indeed, I had good reason to think that Mr. A. S. M. HUTCHINSON, whose first novel, Once Aboard the Lugger, was such an unqualified success, intended to waste his 'talent upon a psychological study of a vulgar woman, but now I know that even if he makes a false start he is only getting up steam for something absolutely fresh and original. The plot of this story Superannuated Tragedian (after forcing the car to pull up). "PERMIT ME, SIR, breathless after page TO INDULGE FOR A FEW BRIEF MOMENTS IN A JOY I HAVE NOT EXPERIENCED SINCE 44 93) is very slight, for, although the vulgar three encounters with him make a stout yarn. The police are woman thinks that she is a peeress, and contrives a great the finest of fine fellows, a breed of demigods-five hundred future for her amiable but effeminate son, the reader knows of them effectively patrolling the frontiers of an Empire. that the hero is really the peer. Not, however, until the The time is in the eighties, just before the Indian Rebellion end of the book is Percival aware of his rank, and by in Western Canada. I should like to have had more of that time he has formed a warm affection for the pseudothe hero's Scotch friends, who are introduced with some peer, and has also made things hum." Chafing under circumstance and incontinently and unwisely abandoned the restraints of village life he joined a kind of travelling Dunn, the Scotch International captain; Mr. Rae, the show, and while living this roving existence he won the most lawyer with the disconcerting smile; Miss Brodie, and glorious fight. "One of the real ones, one of the clean Cameron's sister Moira, bonnie lassies both. breds, one of the true-blues, one of the all-rights, one of the get-there, stop-there, win-there--one o' the picked"-is the In The Trinity Foot Beagles (ARNOLD), Mr. F. C. KEMP-description given to Percival, and I am very content to SON has compiled a history of the well-known pack which, leave him at that. To those who are prepared to overlook under the management of undergraduates, has for more the author's false start (I am sorry to be so insistent about than fifty years hunted hares over the heavy soil of Cam- that, but I resent those initial pages) and to step off the bridgeshire. Mr. KEMPSON is, I gather, a parson of the soundly beaten track of commonplace fiction, I most warmly sporting sort, and he declares himself to be an " hereditary recommend Mr. HUTCHINSON and his Happy Warrior. Barbarian," meaning that he is devoted to field sports as opposed to games, which are pursued, he says, by Philistines. But Mr. KEMPSON, I further gather, has been a rowing man, and he is therefore in the supreme position of being both a Barbarian and a Philistine. The book is put together, if I may say so, in a somewhat disconnected way; "The second portion of the Rue Edouard VII. will be in the form of an arcade, occupied by bishops of the best class."-London Budget. It is possible to overdo a good idea. We would urge that a sprinkling of rural deans and an archdeacon or two of the second class would show up the bishops better. We understand that on their Nornts arrival, before being dispersed, YER NEVER SEEN NONE OF US COMMISSIONAIRES BEFORE? they will give a grand massed Miniature Liveried Official. "'ERE! '00 YER GLAIRIN' AT? 'AVEN'T concert at a Victoria music-hall. ** 66 ** "The toast was drunk with enthusiasm, after which Mr. J. F. Simpson sang 'Bonnie wee thing,' while the Piper played My love's but a lassie yet."-Madras Mail. Mr. SIMPSON evidently thought that the Piper was playing "Bonnie wee thing." J. H. TAYLOR, in an article entitled "Golf at Rome": "A golfer cannot look upon the features of the dying gladiator, immortalised in the famous statue, and think of the magnificent courage and splendid devotion to his Emperor that brought him to his untimely end, without it being impressed upon his mind that the descendants of such men must possess all the characteristics that go to make a successful player." News of the World. Nor can a player at Stoke Poges meditate upon the wonderful flow of language revealed in the Elegy in a Country Churchyard "with Then and Now. THE damosels of long ago It is sometimes a little difficult to out it being impressed upon his mind" know how to pass the long Winter that GRAY would have known what to We give the story for what it is evenings. We strongly recommend as say had he ever topped into the pond. worth. It is said that a sub-editor of a pass-time an attempt to solve some The Pall Mall Gazette recently sub- of the advertisements in our newsmitted to an examination at the hands papers. For example, among its of a phrenologist. Marvellous head-Situations Wanted" we find the follines!" reported the Professor. lowing in The Daily News:MINDER.-Whfs., Babs, Plts., tn., Bk., Wk., Com., qk., exp., rel., ex. refs. In this instance our guess at the truth would be that the advertiser is willing to look after whiffs (i.e. to The Bishop of CARLISLE, in his New keep cigars from going out), babies, Year pastoral, has been inveighing plaintiffs, half-tons, bankrupts, workagainst such of the clergy as "seem men, commissionaires, quacks, exafflicted with incurable indolence." If presidents, relatives, excise-men, and matters do not mend in this respect it referees (the last presumably on Paris is thought that the spinsters of England football-grounds). "No Dictation!" cried The P. M. G. "Hooray!" shouted Tommy, whose weak point is spelling. Were ever nice when they said "No": "BACUP SENSATION. POLICEMAN NOT GUILTY OF SHOPBREAKING." THE PREMIER AND THE BIRD. Now any morning you may hear, All unprepared with vernal rhyme. ASQUITH, for instance, though, you'd to rusticate in some remote spot, and That this is still an Autumn session! Ye who would have your top-notes clear These hints, which early birds convey,Ignore the need to hibernate! The Songster and the Man of State, THOMAS. Thus, in his rambles round the place, But, if you still insist on humming O. S. BLANCHE'S LETTERS. NEW YEAR'S NEWS. West Boggleshire Manor. DEAREST DAPHNE,-Here, at Bosh and Wee-Wee's, we've been having a lovely time out with the West Boggleshire-positively the one and only With piercing glance he clapped his eye motor-hunt! We all follow in motors, Likewise of flowers he makes report on The undefeated Dandelion, Fool's Parsley, nauseous to the nose, By wooded walks and hedgerow ways he Lunched with the Lesser Celandine. Further he saw a roomy nest, nothing more was heard of them till one began to meet them again in the autumn at country houses. And then, my dear, one noticed a change. Marigold, it appeared, had retired from business and made over her share of the joint stock-in-trade, the high spirits, rushing round, chattering about nothing, and "Oh, isn't it absolutely top-hole!" to Bluebell. She was quiet, silent, préoccupée, wore a diamond marquise on her left third, and a dreamy, alwaysThere she sat, twirling her ring and thinking-of-him expression on her face. smiling to herself. And several men who before had scarcely seemed aware of her existence became quite épris of her in this altered state of things, and made immense efforts to get her to talk and laugh as she used; but they were answered either at random or not at all. Of course Marigold was asked about her engagement, but all she would ever say was, We're going to keep our little romance quite to ourselves. We don't want it spoiled by being announced in the papers and gossiped to rags by all of you. He's gone back to his duties in India and he'll be coming home by-and-by, and that's all you 're any of you going to know!". Of those who fancied the idea of cut ting out this absent hero of romance, the and the quarry is a motor-fox! Bosh, chief was the Duke of Derwent, whom who's Master, is naturally very proud the Manoeuvrers gave up in despair ages of it. He says it was the only way ago. Derwent, who never yet wanted out of the difficulties made by those anything unless it belonged to someabsurd farmer-people, with their com- body else, was quite in the first flight plaints about their silly poultry being of Marigold's new-found soupirants and eaten. Our motor-fox gives us simply by degrees became utterly and entirely glorious runs, and then when hounds set upon eclipsing the Absent One. break him up he can quite easily be put The more Marigold wouldn't pay any together again. If anyone earns the attention to what he said and the more brush it's just unhooked and handed to him (or her), and then it's hooked on again. By next season Bosh says perhaps he'll have a pack of motor hounds as well. If we were men, dearest, I'd say, "Hats off to Lady Manoeuvrer!" for really and truly she is a clever woman, et elle connait son monde as well as any of us, and better than most. This is a preface to the news that one of the twins is actually-but wait! she sat in corners twirling her ring and dreaming, the more Derwent persisted, till at last, when they were both at the Dunstables' with a large party, he succeeded in persuading her to forget the other fellow" and elope. 66 They went to town, and were married on the 20th of December, suddenly, at the Registrar's," as Norty put it. Of course, when the knot was fast tied, Derwent was sorry. But there was still a drop of sweetness in his cup. Marigold and Bluebell, as you know," How long will it be before that other what with their height, their twin- fellow knows you've shunted him and hood, their constant rushing round and found someone you like better?" he chattering about nothing, their ever- asked with a chuckle when the moon lasting, "Oh, isn't it absolutely top-was about a week old. His new duchess hole!" and their mother's strenuous flung her arms round his neck. "Oh, efforts on their behalf, have been, for Bobby darling," she yelled, for all and quite several years now, a sort of more than all her old high spirits had double landmark, poor dear things! come back, "you're the only man in (It was Norty who first called them the world for me. There's no other Reculvers.) Well, last July, when every- fellow,' and there never was! It was body left town, the Manoeuvrers went | Mamma's idea that one of us should |