OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._) Some people have all the luck! Fancy preparing for publication this summer a novel whose scene is laid in Belgium. The picture of Bruges Tower on the cover of _The Belfry_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) should alone be enough to sell it like the hottest of hot cakes. Of course it would be rather too much to expect the story to treat of the Belgium we all love and admire to-day. Indeed, MARGARET BAILLIE SAUNDERS, writing in the old times of six weeks ago, permits herself some good-natured humour at the expense of the little red-trousered army. To-day it sounds oddly archaic. But, this apart, there is enough topical and local colour in the setting to secure success, even without an interesting story such as is told here. One may perhaps fairly easily detect its inspiration in certain actual happenings. It is the story of a woman, _Lucy Briarwell_, clever and gifted with personality, the grass-widow of an apparently incurable lunatic who, living in Bruges, falls under the influence of a Belgian poet-dramatist. Together--for _Lucy_ is shown as his collaborator and source of inspiration--they evolve a wonderful new form of miracle play in which she presently captivates London and Paris as the reincarnate _Notre Dame de Bruges_. So much of the tale I indicate; the rest is your affair. It is told in a pleasant haphazard fashion, enriched with flashes of caustic wit and disfigured with a good deal of ungrammatical and slovenly writing. I think I never met a novelist who did more execution among the infinitives. Also I suspect that Mrs. SAUNDERS' zeal for theatrical setting outran her knowledge of it, otherwise she would hardly have permitted a dramatist to speak of his "caste," or the leading lady to leave the theatre (even under circumstances of faintness) in her stage costume. But for all that my congratulations to her on a good story. * * * * * Illustration: A PATRIOT. _The Visitor._ "BUT YOU DON'T IMAGINE FOR A MOMENT THAT YOU COULD SINK A BATTLESHIP WITH THAT, DO YOU?" _Patriotic Seaside Villa Resident._ "NO, I DON'T THINK IT WOULD CARRY FAR ENOUGH; BUT AT ANY RATE IT MIGHT DRAW THE ENEMY'S FIRE!" * * * * *