Produced by Lesley Halamek, Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net PUNCH, or the LONDON CHARIVARI Volume 104, April 22nd 1893 edited by Sir Francis Burnand OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. [Illustration: "The strange sea-creatures which made their appearance."] Two gentlemen of artistic and literary attainments, having studied the romances of VICTOR HUGO for the sake of being inspired by that Grand Old Master's style, determined to essay a "thriller" of most tragic type. These two single authors, Messrs. WYATT and ROSS, being rolled into one, wanted, like the Pickwickian Fat Boy, "to make our flesh creep." In their one-volume Hugoesque romance, _The Earth Girl_, bound in pale grass-green, with blood-red title, they have most unequivocally succeeded. The heroine, The Earth Girl, who, at the last, is sent back whence she came, and so ends by being the "Earth-to-Earth" Girl, is named _Terra_; she commences by being _Terra Incognita_, she is never _Terra Firma_, but her existence, in its consequences to all who come within her influence, is quite a reign of _Terra_. The authors are to be congratulated on not having yielded to a great temptation by styling their story _The Earth Girl; or, Terra-ra-ra-Boom!_ The scene is laid chiefly in the Island of Breke--but to give too many details would spoil the intending-reader's pleasure. So, as _Hamlet_ observes, "Breke, Breke my heart, for I must hold my tongue!" The Earth Girl first sees the light, such as it is, in a cavern, and is brought up on raw eggs fresh from the sea-bird's nest, uncooked herbs, and raw fish. No tea, coffee, milk, or liquors of any description, were within reach of this unhappy family of three, consisting of Pa, Ma, and the Infant Phenomenon. How they slaked their thirst is not clearly stated, unless a sort of aquarium, in which some amiable sharks reposed, was a fresh-water tank. This wild girl was elegantly brought up, as far as their somewhat straitened circumstances would permit, for she learned songs and ballads, French, English, and the Norman _patois_ of the Channel Islands. In these peculiar troglodytian surroundings she had never learned the use of parasol or umbrella, and was entirely ignorant of harp, piano, and the "use of the globes." Coming up out of the caves and breathing once more the upper air, we naturally find ourselves in higher society, and are introduced to a handsome old Peer, _Lord Netherdale_, who has two sons, the half-brothers _Royallet_, one of whom gaily addresses his respected parent as "The Paladin of Paters," and is not at once locked up in Colney Hatch. The old Peer is as eccentric as he is handsome, and he takes up his residence on the Island of Breke, where "the fruit, the vegetables, the strange sea-creatures" (odd fish?), "which made their appearance on his table," (this sounds as if the strange sea-creatures walked in unasked. Queer place this Breke for a