* * * * *

    “The Major then spoke of battles in which he had taken part.  He had
    been wounded in the back leg and arm.”—­Evening News.

Bit of a dog, this Major.

* * * * *

    “PROMOTION.-Rifleman P.R.  Shand to be Sergeant Cock.”—­Ceylon
    Paper.

We hope Sergeant Cock was consulted about this.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “IS THAT AN OFFICIAL LETTER YOU ARE WRITING, MISS BROWN?”

“IT’S—­SEMI-OFFICIAL, SIR.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY SEMI-OFFICIAL?”

“WELL, SIR—­IT’S TO AN OFFICER.”]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(BY MR. PUNCH’S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS.)

Not infrequently our novelists will follow success with a boy hero by a sequel showing the same character grown up.  Mr. E.F.  BENSON, however, has reversed this process, and in a second book about David Blaize introduces him grown not up, but down.  So far down, indeed, as to be able to pass through a door conveniently situated under his own pillow and leading to a dreamland of the most varied enchantments.  I know, of course, what you are about to say; I can see your lips already forming upon the word Alice.  But while I admit that David Blaize and the Blue Door (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) is frankly built after that famous plan this means no more than that Mr. BENSON has used, so to speak, the CARROLL formula as a medium for his agreeable fancies.  These are altogether original and filled with the proper dream-spirit of inconsequence.  Moreover the author has a pretty gift for remembering just the stuff that childhood’s dreams are made of—­such transfigured delights as swimming like fishes or flying in a company of birds; he knows too the odd tags of speech that linger there from daytime, things meaningless and full of meaning—­“Rod-pole-or-perch,” for example, or that thrice-blessed word, “Popocatapetl.”  Best of all, he has resisted the subtle temptation to be even momentarily too clever for his audience (you know the devastating effect that may be produced if a grown-up pauses on the edge of the circle and reminds the story-teller that he has a reputation for wit).  In fine, this early dream of David’s shows him fortunate in having an old family friend like Mr. Benson to write it down; also—­what I must on no account forget—­so sympathetic an artist as Mr. H.J.  FORD to make it into pictures.

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