e in its present
form. I am glad, more especially at the present season, to extend
a grateful welcome to so kindly and charming a story. Miss MARY E.
WALLER has written a singularly refreshing and happy book, full of
passages that reveal a great sympathy for country life and the hearts
of simple people. _Hugh Armstrong_, the central figure, is a youth in
a New England mountain farm, condemned to perpetual inactivity through
an accident. At the beginning of the story we see him, in the depths
of misery, visited by a casual passenger from the stage coach, whose
attention has been caught by his story as related by the driver.
Thenceforward things mend for _Armstrong_. The stranger interests him
in wood-carving; orders pour in, which help to bring comfort to the
farm; books and letters arrive from unknown city dwellers. Thus the
tale is a record of increasing happiness, but kept (an important
thing) from cloying by the tragedy upon which it is built. If you
will not be put off by American dialect or by the rather startling
discovery that one of the kindliest characters is named _Franz_, you
will, I believe, find a brief stay upon '_Lympus_ most beneficial to
your spirits.

* * * * *

HOW TO DEAL WITH YOUR BANKER.

"The bankers of General Chang Tsolin, the Military Governor of
Mukden, who suffered from financial troubles, were summarily
executed by shooting on the charge of having disturbed the
money market."--_Shanghai Mercury_.

* * * * *

"The DarDdaDneDlDleDs Commissioners sat again to-day at
the House of Lords, when General Sir John Maxwell was
examined."--i>Provincial Paper_.

Please do not imagine that that is what the gallant officer called
them.

* * * * *

"A LARGE BLACK DOG, no colour, strayed."--_The Times_.

"THE LUCKY BLACK CAT, in all colours, made to order."--_The
Queen_.

This is the kind of thing that drives a chameleon mad.

* * * * *

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol.
152. January 17, 1917, by Various

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***

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