In mercy we suppress the title of our contemporary.

"The man in custody has been identified as the result of the efforts of the Birkenhead detective stag."

—Liverpool Paper.

A variation on the old-fashioned sleuth-hound.

From the report of a speech by Admiral Sir Percy Scott:—

"He might say that when the Germans were demolarised at the Battle of Jutland ..."

Scottish Paper.

This confirms our impression that, whatever happened at Jutland, we certainly drew the German Navy's teeth.

QUESTIONS.

How did mankind get to all corners of the earth? and what is the cause of exploding suns? These are among the questions put by Professor A. W. Bickerton, of the London Astronomical Society, and they would be solved, it seems, if our learned men would only band themselves together. I have no wish to hamper the good work, but a moment's reflection suggests a number of other questions simply asking to be answered.

For instance, what happens when an irresistible force meets Sir Eric Geddes?

And why is it that while we hear of thousands of people losing their umbrellas we have never yet heard of a single case where a man openly admitted that he had found one?

And is there any reason why the modern novel should not end happily, instead of the hero and heroine always marrying at the last moment.

And how does it happen that Thanet is the best holiday-place in this country and enjoys more sunshine than any other resort?

And could not The Daily Mail extend the same sunshine privilege to other parts?

And what makes a music-hall audience laugh when a comedian changes his hat and mutters the mystic word, "Winston"?

And who is the gentleman referred to?

And why is it that nine-tenths of the coon-singers on the halls are always wanting to get back to their dear old homes? And who is stopping them in their noble desire? And is there any explanation why all these singers seem to have their homes in distant Alabam, where the roses keep on climbing round the door, just close to where the cotton and the corn are growing all the year round, only later in life to leave the dear old place to take up music-hall work here, and then spend the remainder of their lives telling us of their passionate determination to get away back to the old folks?

And would I be right in my surmise that very few homes in Wigan have roses round the door or stand in fields of growing cotton and corn or reek of new-mown hay?

And why is it that, when you tell a man there are so many million stars in the skies, he will believe you, but the moment he sees a notice on a gate bearing the words "Wet Paint" he puts his finger upon it just to find out for himself?

And why did Mrs. Asquith——But perhaps that will be enough for the Professor to be going on with.

Commercial Candour.

"My Studio is the most up-to-date and my methods of photography just a little bit different."

—Canadian Paper.

A NOTE ON THE DRAMA.

["Hamlet was not a business man."—Mr. A. B. Walkley.]

Christmas and the Children.

With the approach of a Festival that is dedicated to the joy of children, Mr. Punch makes bold to plead the cause of the less fortunate among them. The Queen's Hospital for Children, once known as the North-Eastern Hospital for Children, is the only one of its kind in this part of London and serves a poor district with a population of half-a-million. Its claim upon the generosity of more favoured Londoners is as strong as its lack of funds at the present moment is serious. It has one hundred-and-seventy beds, and during the last year has cared for eighteen hundred in-patients and sixty thousand out-patients. Mr. Punch is certain that, if the children of the West-end understood the suffering and needs of these other children of Bethnal Green, they would want to help them by forgoing some of their Christmas toys. Gifts should be addressed to the Secretary, T. Glenton-Kerr, Esq., Queen's Hospital for Children, Hackney Road, Bethnal Green, E.2.

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Monday, November 29th.—Some time ago Lord Newton was appointed Chairman of a Committee on Smoke Abatement. It took enough evidence to fill a Blue-book a couple of inches thick, and, at the request of the Government, furnished an interim report. Supposing, not unnaturally, that its valuable recommendations would be adopted in the Government's housing schemes the Committee was disgusted to find that, save for an emasculated summary in "a dismal journal called Housing," no notice was taken of its report. Lord Newton is not a man who can safely be invited to consume his own smoke, and he made indignant protest this afternoon. A soft answer from Lord Sandhurst, who assured him that the Government, far from being unmindful of the Committee's labours, had already equipped some thousands of houses with central heating, temporarily diverted his wrath.

Thanks to the Sinn Feiners, the Public Galleries of the House of Commons were closed. Thus deprived of all audience save themselves and the reporters the most loquacious Members were depressed. Bombinantes in gurgite vasto, their arguments sounded hollow even to themselves. With an obvious effort they tried to carry on what the Speaker described—and deprecated—as "the usual Monday fiscal debate." This time it turned upon the large imports from Russia in 1913. One side seemed to think that similar imports would be forthcoming to-day but for the obstructiveness of the British Government, while the other was confident that Russia had nothing to export save propaganda. The controversy was beginning to pall when by a happy inspiration Mr. Ronald McNeill, with mock solemnity, inquired if the last egg in Russia had not been eaten by a relation of the Secretary of State for War.

A long-standing Parliamentary tradition enjoins that the reply to any Question addressed to the Chairman of the Kitchen Committee should be greeted with laughter. By virtue of his office he holds, as it were, the "pass-the-mustard" prerogative. Members laughed accordingly when he replied to a question relating to the number of ex-Service men employed by his Committee; but they laughed much more loudly when the hon. Member who put the original Question proceeded to inquire "if his conscience is now quite clear," and Sir J. T. Agg-Gardner, looking as respectable as if he were Mrs. Grundy's second husband, declared, hand on heart, that it was.

The House gave a rather less stentorian welcome than might have been expected to Sir Charles Townshend, who was escorted up to the Table by Mr. Bottomley and Colonel Croft. Perhaps it was afraid that cheers intended for the defender of Kut might be appropriated by the Editor of John Bull.

Encouraged, I suppose, by the emptiness of the Ladies' Gallery, it then proceeded with great freedom to discuss a proposal for the employment of women and young persons "in shifts."

Tuesday, November 30th.—The ex-Crown Prince of Prussia will be tremendously bucked when he reads the report of to-day's proceedings, and discovers that there is one person in the world who takes him seriously. Sir Frederick Hall has been much disturbed by the reports of Hohenzollern intrigues for a restoration, and begged the Government to send a protest to the Dutch Government. But the Fat Boy of Dulwich quite failed to make Mr. Bonar Law's flesh creep.

Mr. Baldwin is the least perturbable of Ministers. Even when Major Edwards invited him to elucidate the phrase "a working knowledge of the Welsh language"—"Does it mean having an intimate acquaintance with the literary works of Dafydd Ap Gwilym or the forgeries of 'Iolo Morganwg'?"—he never turned a hair.

Modesty not having hitherto been regarded as one of Mr. Churchill's most salient characteristics I feel it my duty to record that, on being asked when he would introduce the Supplementary Army Estimates, he replied, "I am entirely in the hands of my superiors."

Wednesday, December 1st.—That Hebrew should be one of the official languages of Palestine seems, on the face of it, not unreasonable. But, according to Lord Treowen, to compel the average Palestinian Jew, who speaks either Spanish or Yiddish, to use classical Hebrew, will be like obliging a user of pidgin English to adopt the language of Addison. He failed, however, to make any impression upon Lord Crawford, who expressed the hope that the Government's action would help to purify the language. Sir Herbert Samuel is determined, I gather, to make Palestine a country fit for rabbis to live in.

The Government of Ireland Bill had a very rough time in Committee. The Lord Chancellor managed to ward off Lord Midleton's proposal to have one Parliament instead of two—"a blow at the heart of the Bill"—but was less successful when Lord Oranmore and Browne moved that the Southern Parliament should be furnished with a Senate. The Peers' natural sentiment in favour of Second Chambers triumphed, and the Government were defeated by a big majority.

The Office of Works has been lending a hand to local authorities in difficulties with their housing schemes. But when Sir Alfred Mond brought up a Supplementary Estimate in respect of these transactions he met with a storm of indignation that surprised him. "The road to bankruptcy," "Nationalisation in the building trade," "Socialistic proposals"—these were some of the phrases that assailed his ears. Fortified, however, by the support of the Labour Party—Mr. Myers declared that his action had been "the one bright spot in the whole of the housing policy"—Sir Alfred challenged his critics to go and tell their constituents that they had voted to prevent houses being built, and got his Estimate through by 190 to 64.

Thursday, December 2nd.—Thanks to the free-and-easy procedure of the House of Lords the Government began the day with a victory. Lord Shandon had moved an amendment, to which the Lord Chancellor objected. But he did not challenge a division when the question was put. Lord Donoughmore, most expeditious of Chairmen, announced "the Contents have it," and the matter seemed over. But then the Lord Chancellor woke up, and said he had meant to ask for a division. "All right," said the Chairman; "clear the Bar," and when the white-wanded tellers had counted their flocks it appeared that the Government had a majority of three.

I do not suppose anyone will say of Lord Birkenhead, as a celebrated judge is reported to have said of one of his predecessors, "'Ere comes that 'oly 'umbug 'umming 'is 'orrid 'ymns;" but he is evidently a student of hymnology, for he referred to the Government victory as this "scanty triumph" and for a long time did not challenge any more divisions.

In the House of Commons an attack upon the new liquor regulations—"pieces of gross impertinence" according to Mr. Macquisten—found no favour with the Prime Minister. Mr. McCurdy announced that he had reduced the price of wheat to the millers and hoped that "in a few weeks" the consumer might begin to receive the benefit. The Chancellor of the Exchequer excused the delay in publishing the Economy Committee's reports on the ground that the Minister of Munitions was "at sea," and elicited the inevitable gibe that he was not the only one. Sir Eric Geddes, with a judicious compliment to the motorists for setting "an extraordinary example of voluntary taxation," got a Second Reading for his Roads Bill; and Sir Gordon Hewart with some difficulty induced the House to accept his assurance that the Official Secrets Bill was meant for the discomfiture of spies and not the harassing of honest journalists.

TO A CLERICAL GOLFING FRIEND.

TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGONE.

Dear Mr. Punch,—You are fond, in "Charivaria," of poking some of your gentle fun at the leisurely bricklayer, and indeed at all the "ca-canny" brigade; but the bricklayer has come in for the thickest of your fire. I hope, however, that you don't think you have discovered his and his fellow-workers' deliberate processes yourself. If so, permit me to draw your attention to Ned Ward's London Spy, which was published as long ago as 1699. In that work is the description of a visit to St. Paul's Cathedral when it was building. A passage in this description runs thus:

"We went a little further, where we observed ten men in a corner very busie about two men's work, taking so much care that everyone should have his due proportion of the labours as so many thieves in making an exact division of their booty. The wonderful piece of difficulty the whole number had to perform was to drag along a stone of about three hundredweight in a carriage, in order to be hoisted upon the moldings of the cupola, but they were so fearful of despatching this facile undertaking with too much expedition that they were longer in hauling about half the length of the church than a couple of lusty porters, I am certain, would have been carrying it to Paddington without resting of their burthen."

Shall I refrain from remarking that there is nothing new under the sun? I will.

Yours, etc., L. V. E.

NEW RHYMES FOR OLD CHILDREN.

The Barnacle.

(A Sort of Sea Shanty.)

"Priests preach the want of brotherhood in the Anglican Church, but many, I am sorry to say, do not practise what they preach."

Letter to Daily Paper.

Is not this carrying the reactionary spirit a little too far?

AT THE PLAY.

"The Dragon."

Some day, no doubt, plays like Mr. Wu and The Dragon (by R. E. Jeffrey) will be forbidden by the League of Nations. Meanwhile let us allow ourselves to be diverted by the motiveless villainies of crooked cruel "Chinks" like Wang Fu Chang, who sold opium at a terrific profit in Mayfair, hung his servants up by their thumbs and belonged to a Society of Elder Brethren, as to whose activities we were given no clue, unless indeed their job was the kidnapping of Younger Sisters for Wicked Mandarins.

For Jack Stacey, who opened the Prologue in Loolong with head in hands and moaned invocations of the Deity (a version doubtless of the well-known gambit, "'Hell!' said the Duchess"), had his little daughter kidnapped at birth or thereabouts (by Wang Fu, as it happened), and never saw her again till, after eighteen years of opium-doping—between the Prologue and the First Act—he called upon the same Wang Fu (just before dinner) with a peremptory message from a very bad and powerful mandarin that if little Miss Che Fu were not packed off to China by eleven that same evening the Elder Brethren would be one short by midnight. Che Fu, I ought to say, passed as Wang's daughter, but was so English, you know, to look at that nobody could really believe it.

Of course Jack didn't recognise her as his own daughter, but equally of course we did, and knew that she would be rescued by her impetuous boy-lover and restored to her real father; but not before great business with opium pipes, pivoting statues of goddesses, inoperative revolvers, gongs, strangulations (with gurgles), detectives, rows of Chinese servants each more rascally (and less Chinese, if possible) than the last, and over all the polished villainy of the inscrutable Wang Fu Chang.

Mr. Jeffrey's technique was quite adequate for this ingenuous kind of thing. He achieved what I take to be the supreme compliment of noisy hushings sibilated from the pit and gallery when the later curtains rose. Perhaps action halted a little to allow of rather too much display of pidgin-English and (I suppose) authentic elementary Chinese and comic reliefs which filled the spaces between the salient episodes of the slender and naïve plot. I couldn't help wondering how Jack Stacey, whom we left at 10.45 in a horrible stupor, shut away in a gilded alcove of Wang Fu's opium den, could appear at 11.30 at Lady Handley's in immaculate evening dress and with entirely unruffled hair, having in the meantime cut down and restored to consciousness two tortured Chinese and heard the true story of his daughter's adventures. This seems to be overdoing the unities. And I wondered whether the puzzled look on young Handley's face was due to this same wonder or to the reflection that if he had shed one undesirable father-in-law he had let himself in for another. For, needless to say, they had all met in the famous opium scene when Stacey was naturally not at his best.

Mr. D. Lewin Mannering was suitably sinister as Wang Fu; Mr. Tarver Penna's Ah Fong, the heroine's champion, made some very pleasant faces and gestures and was less incurably Western than some of his colleagues; Mr. Cronin Wilson's Jack Stacey seemed a meritorious performance. The part of Che Fu made no particular demand on Miss Christine Silver's talent, and Miss Evadne Price faithfully earned the laughter she was expected to make as Sua Se, the opium-den attendant. Leave your critical faculty at home and you will be able to derive considerable entertainment from this unambitious show.

T.

Fashions in Hand-wear.

"Amusing contrast is seen in the Riviera and winter sports outfits now on view, with filmy lace, shimmering silks, and glowing velvets on the one hand and thick wool and the stoutest of boots on the other."

Weekly Paper.

From a feuilleton:—

"... She was startled by a low sibilant whisper, 'I've caught you, my girl!'"

Daily Paper.

Try and hiss this for yourself.

THE BARREL OF BEEF.

We were dawdling home from the westward on the flood. Astern of us, knee-deep in foam, stood the slim column of the Bishop lighthouse, a dark pencil mark on the cloudless sky. To the south the full Atlantic piled the black reefs with hills of snow. Ahead the main islands humped out of the blue sea like a school of basking whales. I had the tiller and Uncle Billy John Polsue was forward picking up the marks and carrying on a running commentary, punctuated by expectorations of dark fluid. Suddenly something away on the port bow attracted his attention. He rolled to his feet, stared for some seconds and shouted, "Hold 'er on the corner o' Great Minalte!" a tremor of excitement in his voice.

I did as I was bid and sheeted home.

Billy John fished the conger gaff from under the blue and silver heap of mackerel in the well and climbed laboriously on to the little half-deck. So we were after some sort of flotsam, I could not see what, because Billy John's expansive back-view obscured the prospect ahead, but from his tense attitude I judged that it appeared interesting. He signed to me to come up another couple of points, took a firm grasp of the gaff and leaned over the bows. Then with a creak of straining tackle and a hiss of riven water a gig was on us. She swooped out of the blue, swept by not two fathoms to windward and with a boat-hook snapped up the treasure trove (it looked suspiciously like a small keg) right under our very noses as adroitly as a lurcher snaps a hare. She ran on a cable's length, spun on her heel and slipped away down the sound, a long lean craft, leaping like a live thing under her press of canvas. She seemed full of redheaded men of all ages and was steered by a brindled patriarch who wagged his vermilion beard at us and cackled loudly. I roared with laughter; I had seldom seen anything so consummately slick in my life.

Billy John roared too, but from other influences. He bellowed, he spat, he danced with rage. He cursed the gig's company collectively and singly, said they were nothing better than common pirates and that they lured ships to destruction and devoured the crews—raw.

The gig's company were delighted; they jeered and waved their caps. Billy John trembled with passion.

"Who stole the bar'l o' beef?" he trumpeted through his palms. "Who—stole—the—bar'l—o'—beef? Hoo hoo!"

This last sally had a subduing effect on the gig's company; they turned their faces away and became absorbed in the view ahead.

Billy John sat down with a grunt of satisfaction. "That settled 'em," he grinned. "They dunno who did steal the bar'l to this day, and each wan do suspect t'other."

"St. Martin's islanders?" I queried.

Billy John shook his head. "Naw, from St. Helen's, o' course; deddn' you see their red 'eads? They 're all red-'eaded over on Helen's—take after their great-grandfather the Devil."

"They're pretty smart, anyhow," said I.

Billy John threw up both hands. "Smart! By dang you've said it! Anythin' in the way o' honest work they do leave to us poor mainland grabbers; they don't unnerstand it; but come a bit o' easy money in the way of wreckage and we might as well stop bed as try to compete with they; we eddn but children to 'em."

"What about this barrel of beef?" I asked.

Billy John chuckled. "Comed to pass years ago, Sir. There was a party of us over 'ere crabbin'. My brother Zackariah 'ad married a Helen's wumman, and a brear great piece she were too. They was livin' on Helen's upon Lower Town beach, and we lodged with 'em.

"Wan mornin' before dawn along comes great Susan in her stockined feet. 'Whist!' says she, 'rouse thee out an' don't make no noise; I think I heerd a gun from Carnebiggal Ledges.'

"We sneaked out like shadows, got the boat afloat and pulled away, mufflin' the oars with our caps. We got a fair start; nobody heerd us go. It weren't yet light and the fog were like a bag, but we got there somehow, and sure enough there were a big steamer fast on the rocks. Great Susan were right. Oh, I tell you t'eddn guesswork with they St. Helen's folk; male or female they got a nose for a wreck, same as cats for mice. There was a couple o' ship's boats standing by on her port side full o' men.

"'Where in 'ell are we?' shouts 'er skipper as we comed nosing through the fog. 'I ain't seen the sun for two days.'

"We told en and lay by chattin' and wonderin' 'ow we was to plunder she, with them in the road. Time went by and there we was still chattin' about the weather an' suchlike damfoolery. Every minute I was expectin' to see the Helen's gigs swarmin' out, and then it wouldn't be pickin's we'd get but leavin's.

"''Ere,' whispers I to Zakky, 'scare 'im off for God's sake.'

"'I'll 'ave a try,' says 'e. 'Say, Mr. Captain, the tide's makin'. She do come through 'ere like a river and you'll be swamped for certain. Pull for the shore, sailor.'

"'Will you pilot me in?' says the captain.

"'Naw,' says Zakky. 'I got to be after my crab-pots; but I'll send my nephew wid 'e.'

"'Keep 'em lost out in the Sound for a couple of hours, son,' he whispers to the boy, and the lad takes 'em off into the fog. 'Now for the plunder, my dears,' says Zakky; and we makes for the ship.

"But Lor' bless you, Sir, she were already plundered. While we was chattin' away on her port side four Helen's gigs' crews had boarded her quietly from starboard and was eatin' through her like a pest o' ants. They'd come staggering on deck—fathers, sons and grandfathers—with bundles twice as big nor themselves, toss 'em into the gigs and go back for more. As for us, we stood like men mazed. I tell you, Sir, a God-fearing man can't make a livin' 'mong that lot; they'll turn a vessel inside out while he's thinkin' how to begin.

"By-'m-by they comed on the prize o' the lot—a bar'l o' beef. My word, what an outcry! 'I seed 'en first!' 'Naw, you deddn': hands off!' 'Leggo; 's mine!' Quarrellin' 'mong themselves now, mark you, beef bein' as scarce as diamonds in them hard times. Old Hosea—the old toad that you seed steerin' that gig just now—he puts a stop to et.

"'Avast ragin', thou fools,' says 'e; "coastguards will be along in a minute and then there'll be nothin' for nobody. Set en in my boat an' I'll divide it up equal on the beach.'

"They done as they were told, and away goes old Hosea for the shore, followed by the other gigs loaded that deep they could hardly swim. Seein' they hadn't left us nothin' but the bare bones we pulled in ourselves shortly after, and my dear life what a sight we did behold! Fellows runnin' about in the fog on the beach, for all the world like shadows on a blind, cursin', shoutin', fightin', tumblin' over each other, huntin' high and low, and in the middle of 'em all old Hosea crying out for his bar'l o' beef like a wumman after her first-born. Somebody'd stole it! Mercy me! we mainlanders lay on our oars and laughed till the tears rolled out of us in streams."

"Who did steal it? Do you know?" I asked.

Billy John nodded. "I do, Sir. Why, great Susan, o' course. They'd forgotten she, livin' right upon the beach—wan o' their own breed. Susan stalked en through the fog an' had en locked in her own house before they could turn round. And many a full meal we poor honest mainlanders had off it, Sir, take it from me."

Patlander.

Our Cynical Municipalities.

"Schemes for the relief of the unemployed at —— include the extension of the cemetery."

Daily Paper.

"The constable went to the warehouse doorway and found two men, who, when asked to account for their movements, suddenly bolted in different directions, pursued by the constable."

—Welsh Paper.

A worthy colleague of the Irish policeman who in a somewhat similar dilemma "surrounded the crowd."

VIGNETTES OF SCOTTISH SPORT.

(By a Peckham Highlander.)

EFFECT AND CAUSE.

The bell was knelling: dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong.

Inside the Hall there was nothing but gloom.

Suddenly the echoes were startled by a loud knocking on the door: rat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, ratta, tatta, tatta, tatta, tat, tat.

Who could it be?

The old servitor shambled to undo the bolts. As he opened the door the wind rushed in, carrying great flakes of snow with it and an icy blast penetrated to every corner of the house.

There followed a man muffled up to the eyes in a vast red scarf—or not so much red as pink, salmon colour—which he proceeded gradually to unwind, revealing at length the features of Mr. James Tod Brown, the senior partner of the firm of Brown, Brown & Brown, of Little Britain. Save for a curious nervousness of speech which caused him to repeat every remark several times, Mr. James Tod Brown was a typical lawyer, in the matter of ability far in advance of either of his partners, Brown or Brown.

"Dear me," he said, "dear me, dear me! This is very sad, very sad—very sudden too, very sudden. And what—tut, tut, dear, dear, let me see—what was the cause of—ah! What was the cause—what was it that occasioned the—how did your master come to die? Yes, how did your master come to die?"

"What is it all about?" asks the reader.

Well, it is not quite so meaningless as it may appear; there is method in the madness; for this is a passage from a story by one of the most popular English authors in America, to whom an American editor has offered twenty cents a word. At the present rate of exchange such commissions are not to be trifled with.

"Wanted, experienced Parlourmaid for a good home, where the household does not change."—Local Paper.

Apparently "no washing."

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)

Mr. Joseph Hergesheimer, for whose work as a novelist I have more than once expressed high admiration, has now brought together seven long-short stories under the collective title of The Happy End (Heinemann). Lest however this name and the little preface, in which the writer asserts that his wares "have but one purpose—to give pleasure," should lead you to expect that species of happy ending in which Jack shall have Jill and naught shall go ill, I think a word of warning may not be wasted. In only three of the tales is the finish a matter of conventional happiness. Elsewhere you have a deserted husband, who has tracked his betrayer to a nigger saloon in Atlantic City, wrested from his purpose of murder by a revivalist hymn; a young lad, having avenged the destruction of his home, returning to his widowed mother to await, one supposes, the process of the law; or an over-fed war profiteer stricken with apoplexy at sight of a boat full of the starved victims of a submarine outrage. You observe perhaps that the epithet "happy" is one to which the artist and the casual reader may attach a different significance. But let not anything I have said be considered as reflecting upon the tales themselves, which indeed seem to me to be masterpieces of their kind. Personally my choice would rest on the last, "The Thrush in the Hedge," a simple history of how the voice of a young tramp was revealed by his chance meeting with a blind and drug-sodden fiddler who had once played in opera—a thing of such unforced art that its concluding pages, when the discovery is put to a final test, shake the mind with apprehension and hope. A writer who can make a short story do that comes near to genius.

If you wish to play the now fashionable game of newspaper-proprietor-baiting you can, with Miss Rose Macaulay, create a possible but not actual figure like Potter and, using it for stalking-horse, duly point your moral; or, with Mr. W. L. George in Caliban (Methuen), you can begin by mentioning all the well-known figures in the journalistic world by way of easy camouflage, so as to evade the law of libel, call your hero-villain Bulmer, attach to him all the legends about actual newspaper kings, add some malicious distortion to make them more exciting and impossible, and thoroughly let yourself go. Good taste alone will decide which is the cleaner sport, and good taste does not happen to be the fashion in certain literary circles at the moment. Of course Mr. George, being a novelist of some skill, has provided a background out of his imagination. The most interesting episode, excellently conceived and worked out, is the only unsuccessful passage in Lord Bulmer's life, the wooing of Janet Willoughby. The awkward thing for Mr. George is that he has so splashed the yellow over Bulmer in the office that there is no use in his pretending that the Bulmer in Mrs. Willoughby's drawing-room is the same man in another mood. He just isn't. Incidentally the author gives us the best defence of the saffron school of journalism I've read—a defence that's a little too good to believe; and some shrewd blows above (and, as I have hinted, occasionally below) the belt.