ese she adds one
of the few gifts that no training can confer--the natural joy of life
that comes of just being young.

O.S.

* * * * *

"Food prices were coming down. Soap had already been reduced
1d. a lb."--_Daily Paper._

We tried it in 1917, but found it deficient in protein.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "YOU'RE SURE THIS IS WILTSHIRE BACON?"

"ER--I WOULDN'T LIKE TO GUARANTEE IT, MADAM--_NOT ABSOLUTELY_."

"WHERE DO YOU GET IT FROM, THEN?"

"WELL, IT _COMES_ FROM AMERICA, MADAM."]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

Probably one of your first, and abiding, impressions of _The Third
Window_ (SECKER) will be that of almost extreme modernity. Certainly
ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK (Mrs. BASIL DE SELINCOURT) has produced a
story that, both in its protagonists--a young war-widow and a maimed
ex-officer--and in its theme--spirit-communication and survival of
personality--is very much of the moment. It is a short book, not two
hundred pages all told, and with only three characters. You observe
that I have given you no particulars as to the third, though (or
because) she is of the first importance to the development. To say
more of this would be to ruin all, since suspense is essential to
its proper savouring; though I may indicate that it turns upon the
question whether the dead husband is still so far present as to forbid
the union of his widow and his friend. The thing is exceedingly
well done, despite a suggestion now and again that the situation is
becoming something too fine-drawn; I found myself also in violent
disagreement with the ending, though for what reasons I must deny
myself the pleasure of explaining. Perhaps the cleverest feature of
an unusual tale is the idea of Wyndwards, the modern "artistic" house
that is its setting--a house rather over deliberate and self-conscious
in its simplicity and beauty, lacking soul, but swept and garnished
for the reception of the seven devils of bogiedom. The atmosphere of
this is both new and conveyed with a very subtle skill.

* * * * *

It must be admitted that Mrs. BELLOC LOWNDES'S young ladies enjoy
singularly poor luck, as is shown notably by their habit when in
foreign parts of picking up the worst people and generally surrounding
themselves with a society that it would be flattery to