WA BAWBEES
TAE MIND MA GREATCOAT!"]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)

It is strange to find the inexhaustible Mr. W.E. NORRIS turning towards the
supernatural. Yet there is at least more than a flavouring of this in the
composition of _Brown Amber_ (HUTCHINSON), which partly concerns a
remarkable bead, having the property of bringing good or evil luck to its
various owners. As (after the manner of such things in stories) the charm
was for ever being lost, and as the kind of fortune it conferred went in
alternations, possession of it was rather in the nature of a gamble. All I
have to observe about it is that such hazards consort somewhat better with
the world of HANS ANDERSEN or the _Arabian Nights_ than with those quiet
and well-bred inhabitants of South-Western London whom one has learnt to
associate with the name of NORRIS. Thus, in considering the nice problem of
whether _Clement Drake_ (as typical a Norrisian as ever buttoned spats)
would or would not escape the entanglements of _Mrs. D'Esterre_, it simply
irritated me to suppose that the event might be determined by the
machinations of djins. In a word, East is East and S.W. is S.W., and never
the twain shall, or should, be mixed up in a novel that pretends to
anything more serious than burlesque. I am not sure also that, for
different reasons, I did not regret the introduction of the War; though as
a grand climax it has, I admit, a lure that must be almost irresistible to
the novelist. For the rest, if you do not share my objection to the (dare I
say it?) amberdexterity of the plot, you will find Mr. NORRIS as pleasant
as ever in his scenes of drawing-room comedy.

A volume of remarkable interest is _In Ruhleben _(HURST AND BLACKETT), into
which Mr. DOUGLAS SLADEN has gathered a variety of information concerning
the life of the English civilian prisoners in Germany, its many hardships
and few ameliorations. The greater part of the book is filled with a series
of letters sent by one of these prisoners to his mother. Perhaps (one
suspects) the writer of these was not altogether an ordinary young man.
From whatever reason, the fact remains that his letters are by no means
uncheery reading; his books and study, most of all his friendships (with
one fellow-captive especially), seem to have kept him contented and even
happy. Of course some part of this may well have been coloured for the
ma