I obviate dirt, and I dissipate dark. 
  You just let me in; the result you’ll be charmed at. 
    Objections, Old Boy, are all fiddle-de-dee. 
  Come now!  I’m sure you cannot be alarmed at
           A dear little chap like me!

PATERFAMILIAS.

A dear little chap!  Very true; but I’m thinking
That you’re just a little too “dear” for me—­yet! 
Ah, yes! it’s no use to stand smiling and winking;
I like the bright ways of you, youngster,—­you bet! 
You’re white as the moon, and as spry as a rocket;
No doubt all you say in self-praise is quite true,
But you see, boy, I must keep an eye to my pocket! 
The Renters and Raters so put on the screw,
That a “middle-class income” won’t stand much more squeezing,
And Forty or Fifty Pounds more in the year. 
For your bright companionship, albeit pleasing,
Would come pretty stiff, my boy. That is my fear. 
Just cheapen yourself, in supply and in fitting,
To something that fits with my limited “screw,”
And you will not find me shrink long from admitting
A dear little chap like you!

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

[Illustration]

The Baron’s Assistant Reader reports as follows to his chief—­If you want a really refreshing book, a book whose piquant savour and quaint originality of style are good for jaded brains, buy and read In a Canadian Canoe by BARRY PAIN, the sixth volume of the Whitefriars Library of Wit and Humour (HENRY & Co.).  Most of the stories and, I think, the best that go to make up this delightful volume have already appeared in The Granta, a Cambridge magazine, which London papers are accustomed to speak of as “our sprightly contemporary.”  They now seek and are sure to obtain a wider public and a more extended fame.  There is in these stories a curious mixture of humour, insight and pathos, with here and there a dash of grimness and a sprinkling of that charming irrelevancy which is of the essence of true humour.  Occasionally Mr. BARRY PAIN wings a shaft against the comfortably brutal doctrines of the average and orthodox householder, male or female.  But on these occasions he uses the classical fables and the pagan deities as his bow, and the twang of his shot cannot offend those who play the part of target and are pierced.  Read the four stories from the “Entertainments of Kapnides” in the “Canadian Canoe” series, or, “An Hour of Death,” “The Last Straw,” and “Number One Hundred and Three” in “The Nine Muses Minus One,” and you will see at once what I mean.  Then for run-away, topsy-turvey wit I think I would back “The Story of the Tin Heart” and “The Camel who never got Started,” against most stories I know.  Mr. BARRY PAIN’s stories sometimes make me feel as if I had got hold of the key-handle of things which have hitherto been puzzles to me.  I turn it, open the door ever so little to peep inside, and before I have taken a