AFE NOW, MISTER?"

"YES--IT WAS ALL CLEAR AT 9.20."

"GOOD ON 'EM! JEST GAVE MY OLE MAN TIME TO GIT 'IS FINAL."]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS._)

Mr. STEPHEN McKENNA, with the blushing honours of _Sonia_ still fresh
upon him, has now turned his pen to a tale of farcical adventure, the
result being _Ninety-Six Hours' Leave_ (METHUEN), and I could find
it in my heart to regret it. Because, to speak frankly, the present
volume will do little to add to the reputation so deservedly won by
the other. It is a tangle of complications, which, since they have
nothing solid to rest upon, begin by baffling, and end by boring, the
reader who strives to keep pace with them. A young officer, wishful
to dine at a smart hotel and having no appropriate clothes, is
struck with the idea of pretending to be a foreign royalty, and thus
incapable of sartorial indiscretion. And, as all sorts of assassins
and undesirable aliens happened to be waiting about to kill the man
whose style he borrowed, you can make a fair guess at the subsequent
action. There is much dialogue, most of it sparkling, though even here
I have to report criticism from a young friend to whom I introduced
the story. He said, "People don't talk like that really." Which
happens to be undeniably true. Thus, while giving Mr. McKENNA credit
for an active invention and some really writty turns of phrase, I
fear I must repeat my warning that as a _farceur_ he is below his
best form.

* * * * *

The clever lady who elects to call herself "RICHARD DEHAN" has already
secured a deserved reputation as a writer of short stories. Her new
book, _Under the Hermes_ (HEINEMANN), gives us a further selection of
tales of various lengths, from one that is not quite a novel to others
that are as brief as ten pages. The themes and settings are equally
varied; but all--or almost all--show the writer at her best in the
vigorous, swift and exciting development of some dramatic situation.
The exception, I may say at once, is the title-tale, to my mind a
stilted and--in a double sense--obviously "studio piece," quite
unworthy of its position at the opening of so attractive a volume,
where indeed it might easily discourage a questing reader. "Mr. DEHAN"
is far more fairly represented by such brilliant little miniatures
of historical romance as (to select three at random) "A Speaking
Lik