er page, and each column contained between 80 and 90 names of
dead, wounded, and missing officers and men--a total of nearly
6,000,000."--_Daily Sketch_.

We trust our spirited contemporary has not joined the Hide-the-Truth
Press, for we make the sum approximately 7,872,186,090.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Old Gentleman (to father of conscientious
objector)._ "BUT SUPPOSING A GERMAN WAS GOING FOR YOUR SON WITH A
BAYONET--WOULDN'T HE GO FOR THE GERMAN?"

_Father of C.O._ "AY! I DOUBT HE'D SAY SUMMAT. 'E'S GOT A SHARP TONGUE
WHEN 'E'S VEXED."]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS_.)

I think I prefer Mr. WELLS'S recent essay in the Newest Theology to
this too concrete illustration of _The Soul of a Bishop_ (CASSELL).
It's not that I object to the irreverence of stripping a poor tired
bishop of cassock and gaiters, pursuing him to a sleepless bed and
cinematographing all his physical twistings and turnings, his moral
misgivings, his torturing doubts. I owe too much to Mr. WELLS'
irreverences to mind that sort of thing; and I must say that, for a
man who can't have had very much to do with the episcopacy in his
busy life, he does manage to give a confoundedly plausible atmosphere
to the whole setting. There are two letters from an older bishop to
_Dr. Scrope_, the one, yieldingly tolerant, to dissuade him from
resignation, the other, written after the accomplished fact, with
touches of exquisitely restrained yet palpable malice, which strike
me as masterly projections. Mr. WELLS also contrives a wonderful
impressiveness in certain passages of the bishop's three visions. But
I can't, even after careful re-reading, see the point of making the
bishop's enlightenment depend upon a mysterious drug. This has an
effect of impishness. There is nothing in _Dr. Scrope's_ development
that might not have taken place without this fantastic assistance....
I suppose the general suggestion of this rather wayward and hasty but
conspicuously sincere book is, that if only an occasional bishop would
secede it would make it easier for the plain man to listen to the
rest. And there may be something in this.

To those who are in love with Mr. W.J. LOCKE'S incurable romanticism
or who have a taste for heroines that "stiffen in a sudden stroke
of passion looking for the instant electrically beautiful," let me
commend _The Red Plane