Clad in his claret-coloured dressing-gown, the new champion pressed his _fiancee_ against the yellow facings and stroked her fair hair fondly with his boxing-gloves. "My little wife!" he whispered. And the vast area of Corinthia rang with emotional cheers. * * * * * Illustration: _Sentry (suddenly appearing)._ "HALT! WHO GOES THERE?" _Brown._ "ER--SEASON!" * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._) Far too rarely does the conscientious reviewer enjoy such a chance as has come to me now, a chance to let himself go in the matter of praise without stint or reservation. As a reward doubtless for some of my many unrecorded good deeds, there has come into my hands a slender volume called _Naval Occasions_ (BLACKWOOD), which seems to me to be the most entirely satisfactory and, indeed, fascinating thing of its kind that ever I read. The writer chooses for his own sufficient reasons to disguise himself as "BARTIMEUS," and under that name I have to ask him to accept my very sincere gratitude. The little book contains twenty-five sketches, mostly quite short, relating to (I quote its text, taken from the Articles of War) "the Navy, whereon, under the good Providence of God, the wealth, safety, and strength of the Kingdom chiefly depend." Never surely did a book appear so aptly. At a moment like this, when the dullest collection of naval facts can stir the pulse, such pages as these, full of the actual life and work of the men who are safeguarding us all, deserve a public as vast as the Empire itself. The appeal of them is amazing, for their art is of so concealed a quality that the writing seems simplicity itself. To say that they bring the atmosphere of salt winds and the tang of the sea, is nothing; a skilful novel about Margate sands would deserve this praise; it is in their humanity that the charm lies, the sense of courage and comradeship and high endeavour that is in every one of them. You will laugh often as you read; and sometimes, quite suddenly, you will find yourself with a prickly feeling at the back of the eyes, because of the tears that are in these things; but they are the proud kind, never the sloppily sentimental. And at the end I am mistaken in you if you do not close the book with the rare and moving sensation that you have found something of which you can say, as I myself did, "This is absolutely It!" * * * * *