e are few on record more brilliant
than "Irish Diamonds." Stay, though! If the real diamonds were "turned
out of the chemist's retorts," then his retorts, without these flashes
of brilliancy, must have been a trifle dull, and he is no longer the
chemist we took him for. "But," to quote our KIPLING, "that is another
story."

* * * * *

THE NEW EVANGEL.

[M. ZOLA, in his new Novel, glorifies War, and the
regenerative mission of human bloodshed.]

"ZOLA on War," intensifies the "Hola!"
Of purists who are all for "war on ZOLA!"
Well, he whose pen is touched with tints from Tophet,
Is the right man to pose as Red War's Prophet!

* * * * *

A TRIFLE FOR _THE BUILDER_.--"When are houses like difficulties?" And
the practical man replies, "When they have to be 'faced.'"

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE RULING PASSION STRONG AT DINNER.

_Laconic Waiter_ (_thoroughly familiar with Sporting Major's taste in
Champagne_). "SEVENTY-FOUR, SIR?"

_Sporting Major_ (_down on his luck, after a bad week at Newmarket_).
"SEVEN-TO-FOUR, SIR! DASH IT! WOULDN'T TAKE TEN TO ONE ABOUT
ANYTHING!"]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

[Illustration]

"Respected ANDREW LANG," writes the Baron's Assistant Reader, "I have
read your criticism in _Longman's Magazine_ upon Mr. BARRY PAIN's _In
a Canadian Canoe_. It's an ugly piece of bludgeon work, I admit, but
not convincing to anyone who has read the book of which you speak. You
tear away a line or two from the context, and ask your readers to say
if _that_ is wit or humour. How your admirers would have protested
had any sacrilegious critic ventured to treat one of your own immortal
works in this manner. _Essays in Little_, a book which, by the way,
appeared in the same series for which Mr. BARRY PAIN wrote, is a
pleasant and inoffensive compilation, but even _Essays in Little_
would have presented a sorry appearance if, let us say, ANDREW LANG
had reviewed it in this perfunctory and extractory and arbitrary
fashion. I remember that in that case the critics were respectfully
enthusiastic. Even Mr. BLUDYER would have doffed his cap, I fancy, to
one

Who rhymes, researches and reviews,
Who sometimes writes like Genesis,
And sometimes in the _Daily News_.

For, after all, you stand high in the journalistic world. Your opinion
passes current in