The Baron likes persons who take a hint kindly and act on it sensibly.  He says this a propos of the Hairless Paper-pad Holder, the bald idea of which was suggested in Mr. Punch’s pages.  The paper-pad will be found most useful to travelling writers who use ink, and those authors whom gout, or some other respectable ailment, compels to work recumbently in bed or on sofa.  The writer in bed, with ink handy, has only to take up his pad in one hand and his pen in the other, and as sheet after sheet is covered—­sheets of paper bien entendu—­he tears it off, and dries it at once on the blotter, which forms a portion of the pad.  For Mr. GLADSTONE, when he is once again Prime Minister, the Hairless Paper-pad will be invaluable, as he can place it comfortably on his knee, write his despatch to HER MAJESTY, and blot it without distraction.  As a writer of considerable practical experience, the Baron DE BOOK-WORMS strongly recommends the Hairless Paper-pad, which he will leave as a Hairloom to his family.

[Illustration]

The Baron wishes to say that he has received Dunlop’s Calculating Apparatus, and in attempting to discover how on earth to use it, whether as a game, or a puzzle, or a ready-reckoner, the Baron’s hair is turning from grey to white.  There are numbers, and sections, and tons, and small figures and large figures, and slips, and strips, and numbers in black ink, and others in red ink, and though it must of course be the very simplest and easiest thing in the world when you once know all about it, yet it is just the sort of book (yet it isn’t exactly a book) that might have deeply interested the Hatter and the March Hare, and LEWIS CARROLL’S Snark Hunters, and suggested many deep questions to the inquiring mind of Alice in Wonderland.  As a really humorous production, capable of affording amusement for many a weary hour, it may be safely recommended to parties in country houses during an exceptionally rainy season.

THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS.

P.S.—­My faithful “Co.” has been reading The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, No Thoroughfare, and The Perils of Certain English Prisoners, the joint work of CHARLES DICKENS and WILKIE COLLINS, and now published for the first time in a single volume.  He says that the book is instructive, inasmuch as it shows the growth of its authors’ collaboration.  When the writers started The Lazy Tour they were, so to speak, like the gentleman seated one day at the organ, “weary and ill at ease;” they grew more accustomed to one another during The Perils, and attained perfection in No Thoroughfare.  This last novel shows no traces of dual workmanship, and might have been the outcome of a single pen.  My “Co.” has but one fault to find with Messrs. CHAPMAN AND HALL (Limited)—­he says that the stories deserved better illustrations.

* * * * *

A VALID EXCUSE.