a."--_Dublin Evening Mail_.

If that won't frighten it nothing will.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "YOU WOULDN'T THINK IT TO LOOK AT 'IM, BUT WHEN I SAYS
''ANDS UP,' 'E ANSWERS BACK IN PUFFICK ENGLISH, 'STEADY ON WITH YER
BLINKIN' TOOTHPICK,' 'E SEZ, 'AND I'LL COME QUIET.'"]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)

I am wondering whether, among the myriad by-products of the War, there
should be numbered a certain note of virility hitherto (if he will forgive
me for saying so) foreign to the literary style of Mr. E. TEMPLE THURSTON.
Because I have certainly found _Enchantment_ (UNWIN) a far more vigorous
and less saccharine affair than previous experience had led me to expect
from him. For which reason I find it far and away my favourite of the
stories by this author that I have so far encountered. I certainly think
(for example) that not one of his Cities of Beautiful Barley-Sugar contains
any figures so alive as those of _John Desmond_, the hard-drinking Irish
squireen, and _Mrs. Slattery_, his adoring housekeeper. There is red blood
in both, and not less in _Charles Stuart_, a hero whose earlier adventures
with smugglers, secret passages and the like have an almost STEVENSONIAN
vigour. All the life of impoverished Waterpark, with its wonderful
drawing-room full of precarious furniture, is excellently drawn. I
willingly allow Mr. THURSTON so much of his earlier manner as is implied in
the (quite pleasant) conceit of the fairy-tale. The point is that the real
tale here is neither of fairies nor of sugar dolls, but of genuine human
beings, vastly entertaining to read about and quite convincingly credible.
I can only entreat the author to continue this rationing of sentiment for
our mutual benefit.

* * * * *

When a book rejoices in such a title as _The Amazing Years_ (HODDER AND
STOUGHTON) and begins with a prosperous English family contemplating their
summer holiday in August 1914, you may be tolerably certain beforehand of
its subject-matter. When, moreover, the name on the title-page is that of
Mr. W. PETT RIDGE, you may with equal security anticipate that, whatever
troubles befall this English family by the way, they will eventually reach
a happy ending, and find all for the best in the best of all genially
humorous worlds. As indeed it proves. But of course the _Hilliers_ were
exc