oor of an hostelry.
And the Romany sang, "To the very life
Ye shall pay for bed and board;
Will ye turn aside to the House of Strife?
Will ye lodge at the Inn o' the Sword?"

Then I looked at the inn 'twixt joy and fear,
And the Romany looked at me.
Said I, "We ha' come to a parting here
And I know not who you be."
But he only laughed as I smote on the door:
"Go, take ye the fighting chance;
Mayhap I once was a troubadour
In the knightly days of France.
Oh, the feast is set for those who dare
And the reddest o' wine outpoured;
And some sleep sound after peril and care
At the Hostelry of the Sword."

* * * * *

For our "National Lent"--the War Loan.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Pet of the Platoon_. "I DIDN'T HALF TELL OFF OUR SERGEANT
JUST NOW. I CALLED HIM A KNOCK-KNEED, PIGEON-TOED, SWIVEL-EYED MONKEY, AND
SAID HE OUGHT TO GO TO A NIGHT-SCHOOL!"

_Ecstatic Chorus_. "AND WHAT DID HE SAY?"

_Bill_ (_after a pause_). "WELL, AS A MATTER OF FAC', I DON'T THINK HE
QUITE HEARD ME."]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks_.)

When the eminent in other branches of art take to literature, criticism
must naturally be tempered with respect. This is much how I feel after
reading Sir WILLIAM RICHMOND'S _The Silver Chain_ (PALMER AND HAYWARD).
Probably, however, I should have enjoyed it more had not the publishers
indulged in a wrapper-paragraph of such unbounded eulogy. If anybody is to
call this novel "a work of great artistic achievement," and praise its
"philosophy, psychology, delightful sense of humour, subtle analysis" and
all the rest, I should prefer it to be someone less interested in the wares
thus pushed. For my part I should be content to call _The Silver Chain_ by
no means an uninteresting story, the work of a distinguished man, obviously
an amateur in the craft of letters, who nevertheless has pleased himself
(and will give pleasure to others) by working into it many pen-pictures of
scenes in Egypt and Rome and Sicily, full of the glowing colour that we
should expect from their artist-author. But the tale itself, the unrewarded
love of the middle-aged "Philosopher" for the not specially attractive
heroine _Mary_, and the subordinate very Byronic romance of _Herbert_ and
_Annunziata_, quite frankly