getting on famously with the fifth page of Dash when the library parcel again arrived, containing two new books for those I had returned in the morning.

Meeting C. the next day he asked me if I did not think Dash the finest thing I had ever read.

I said yes, but asked him if he had not found it a little difficult to get into.

"Possibly," he said, "possibly. But what a reward!"

"You like books all in long conversations?" I asked.

"I love Dash," he said, "anyway."

"Did you read every word?" I asked.

"Well, not perhaps every word," he replied, "but I got the sense of every page. I read like that, you know—synthetically."

"Yes, of course," I said.

The next day I changed the two library books that were finished for two more, but it was Dash which I took up first. There is no doubt about its being a very remarkable book, but I had had a rather heavy day and my brain was not at its best. What extraordinary novels people do write nowadays! Fancy making a whole book, as the author of Hot Maraschino has done, out of the Elberfeldt talking horses! In this book, which has an excellent murder in a stable in it, the criminal is given away by a horse who tells her master (it is a mare) what she saw. I couldn't lay the story down.

That night I dined out and heard more about Dash. In fact, I myself started one long conversation on that topic with an idle lady who really had read every word. I went on to recommend it right and left. "You must read Dash," I said at intervals; "it's extraordinarily good."

"Some one was telling me he couldn't get on with it at all," said one of my partners.

"Not really?" I said, and clicked my tongue reproachfully.

"Yes, he says it's so involved and rambling."

"Ah, well," I said, "one must persevere. Books mustn't be too easy. For my part——Yes, champagne, please."

"I'll get it, anyway," she said. "I feel sure your judgment is sound."

Looking in at the club later I found D. playing snooker. After missing an easy shot he turned the talk to Dash.

"Tip-top, isn't it?" he said.

"Which is your favourite chapter?" I asked.

His face told me I had him.

"Oh, well, that's difficult to say," he replied.

"Surely you think that one about the stevedore's spaniel, towards the end, is terrific?" I said.

"Of course that's fine," he replied, "but I was just wondering whether——"

But I didn't stop to listen. There is no stevedore and no spaniel in the whole book, as I had carefully ascertained.

The next day I had A., B. and C. with the same device.

Meanwhile I am plodding away with Dash. I have now reached page 27. A great book, as all agree. But the books that I shall read while I am reading it will make a most interesting list.

Scene—Arrivals at Fancy Dress Ball.

Policeman. "Now then, come along there, come along."

Taxi-Driver. "'Arf a jiff, Copper; I think they've stitched Romeo's money into 'is backbone."

A HARD CASE.

Dear Mr. Punch,—As the friend of my family from 1846, I ask you for advice on a subject which touches me painfully both as a husband and a father. My wife is, as I personally know, the dearest woman in Great Britain, and our child is, I am credibly informed, the finest child in Europe. Infandum renovare dolorem.

Our child is four months old; it is named Eunice. Yesterday I found my dear wife with the infant weeping piteously—my wife, that is, not the infant. I proceeded at once to use