"The present reviewer's pen cleaves to the roof of his mouth when he tries to describe it."--_Evening Standard._ That should teach him to get rid of the nasty habit of sucking the nib. * * * * * [Illustration: MULE HUMOUR.] [Illustration: "He's kicked the Corporal!"] [Illustration: "He's kicked the Vet.!!"] [Illustration: "He's kicked the Transport Officer!!!"] [Illustration: "He's kicked the Colonel!!!!"] * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.) I think I never read a story that impressed me as more untimely than this to which Mr. IVOR BROWN has given the title of _Security_ (SECKER). It is about an Oxford Don, one _John Grant_, who became, as others have become, irked by the placid routine of Senior Common-Room existence, and yearned for adventure. So he came to London, and got his first dose of it as a labour-agitator and backer of strikes. I suppose that the atmosphere of labour-agitating and strike-backing is skilfully conveyed (that of Oxford donship undoubtedly is), but I can't tell you how antique it all seems. These scornful quotations from an imaginary Capitalist press and the fierce denial that industrial strife was ever assisted by foreign agencies--it all sounds like a voice from ancient history. One rubs one's ears at it. Eventually militant Socialism wearies _John_ as much as academic torpor had done, and to escape from both he marries a wife. More atmosphere, this time of a dreary little seaside town and its so-called society. But _John_ fares no better here; and at last, on his return from a walking holiday, he finds that _Mrs. John_, unable to put up with him any longer, is putting up without him at a London hotel in company with Another. That seems a situation insecure enough to satisfy the most exacting. But even from this nothing results, and husband and wife drift together again. I like to think that nowadays, what with Zeps and other things, poor old _John_ may grow really contented. Meanwhile, clever as it is, the tale seems oddly anaemic and unreal. It is like those tragically trivial journals of 1914 that still survive in the dusty waiting-rooms of dentists. I don't suggest that Mr. BROWN, whose previous book I much admired, should write about the War; but I could wish him a little more in tune with the spirit it has produced. * * * * *