I ought to add that I think I asked Mr. BESIER long ago to try and make a better bow to his audience. Well, he hasn't paid any attention to my request. O. S. * * * * * "OUR WORLD FAMOUS TOILET CREAM IMPROVES THE COMPLEXION OF ALL LOCAL CHEMISTS AND STORES." We do not worry about the complexion of the Stores but we are glad for the local Chemists. * * * * * [Illustration: _Officer_ (_to trooper, whom he has recently had occasion to reprimand severely_). "WHY DID YOU NOT SALUTE?" _Trooper._ "I THOCHT ME AN' YOU WISNA' ON SPEAKIN' TER-RMS THE NOO."] * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._) I confess that I was at first a little alarmed by the title of _Friendly Russia_ (FISHER UNWIN). A book with a name like that, with, moreover, an "introduction"--and one by no less a person than Mr. H. G. WELLS--seemed to threaten ponderous things, maps probably, and statistics and unpronounceable towns. Never was there a greater mistake. What Mr. DENIS GARSTIN has put into his entertaining pages is simply the effect produced by a previously unknown country upon the keen and receptive mind of a young man who is fortunately able to translate his impressions into vigorous and picturesque language. I have met few travel books so unpretentious, none that gives more vividly the feeling of "going there oneself" that must be the final test of success. The last few years have made a happy change in the popular English conception of Russia. Even before the War, our old melodramatic idea, that jumble of bombs and spies and sledge-hunting wolves, had begun to give place to a slightly apologetic admiration. Now, of course, we are all Russophil; but for the understanding proper to that love there can be no better introduction than Mr. GARSTIN'S pleasant book. Spend with him a happy summer by the waters of the Black Sea; share, along with his humour, his appreciation of that life of contented simplicity, where easy-going and hospitable families are ruled by the benevolent despotism of equally easy-going domestics (O knouts, O servitude!), where the casual caller "drops in" for a month or more, and where everyone knows everything about everybody and nobody minds. By way of contrast to this, the latter part of the book contains, in "Russia at War," some chapters of an even closer appeal. You will read here, not unmoved, of how that terrible week of suspense came upon the soul of a people, of the fusion of all discordant factions into one army intent only upon the Holy War. There is encouragement and a heartening certainty of triumph in this that should be an unfailing remedy for pessimism. * * * * *