his: Even still
Things are apt to go ill
With old, young and middle-aged freaks.

* * * * *

Our Erudite Contemporaries.

"The Grecian women were forbidden entrance to the stadium where
the [Olympic] games were being held, and any woman found therein
was thrown from the Tarpeian rock."

_Canadian Paper._

* * * * *

"The French are thinking of building straw houses to remedy the
present housing crisis. The first straw house has already been
built at Montargis."--_Evening Paper._

Where, presumably, they are trying it on the well-known local Dog.

* * * * *

"Negotiating the intricate traffic of the City was quite easy, the
engine being responsive to the slightest touch of the steering
wheel. It is just the car for the owner-driver."

_Financial Paper._

Our chauffeur agrees. He says _he_ wouldn't undertake to drive it down
the village street, let alone the City.

* * * * *

"IS SINGING ON THE DECLINE?
A GREAT TENOR'S ADVICE.
'NEVER FIGHT AGAINST THE BRASS.'"

_Morning Paper._

It is, we believe, the experience of most impresarios that great
tenors almost invariably fight _for_ the brass.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "QUICK, MUMMIE! COME AND HELP BOBBIE--HE'S FALLEN INTO
THE LUCKY DIP."]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

So charged is it with liable-to-go-off controversy that I should
hardly have been astonished to see Mr. H. G. WELLS'S latest volume,
_Russia in the Shadows_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), embellished with
the red label of "Explosives." Probably everyone knows by now the
circumstances of its origin, and how Mr. WELLS and his son are (for
the moment) the rearguard in that long procession of unprejudiced
and undeceivable observers who have essayed to pluck the truth about
Russia from the bottom of the Bolshevist pit. What Mr. WELLS found is
much what was to be expected: red ruin, want and misery unspeakable.
The difference between his report and those of most of his forerunners
is that, being (as one is apt to forget) a highly-trained writer, he
is able to present it with a technical skill that enormously helps
the effect. Our author having been unable to deny the shadow, like
everyone else save p