I have a friend; his name is John; I tell him he is "getting on" And "growing fat," and things like that.... He pays no heed. He's too far gone. HENRY. * * * * * "PUPILS wanted for Pianoforte and Theory.--J.G. Peat, Dyer and Cleaner."--_New Zealand Herald._ "That strain again! It had a dying fall."--_Twelfth Night_, Act I., Sc. 1, 4. * * * * * "The lowest grade of porter is the grade from which railway employees in the traffic departments gravitate to higher positions."--_Daily Paper._ The EINSTEIN theory is beginning to capture our journalists. * * * * * There was a Society Sinner Who no longer was asked out to dinner; This proof of his guilt So caused him to wilt That he's now emigrated to Pinner. * * * * * [Illustration: MORE ADVENTURES OF A POST-WAR SPORTSMAN. _Post-War Sportsman._"WOT'S THE MATTER?" _Mrs. P.-W.S._"WHEN I WANT HIM TO JUMP THE FENCE HE JUST STOPS AND EATS IT. WHAT AM I TO DO?" _P.-W.S._ "COME ALONG WI' ME, MY DEAR; I'LL SHOW YOU. 'E CAN'T EAT A GATE."] * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._) In the war-after-the-war, the bombardment of books that is now so violently raging upon all fronts, any contribution by a writer as eminent as Lord HALDANE naturally commands the respect due to weapons of the heaviest calibre. Unfortunately "heavy" is here an epithet unkindly apt, since it has to be admitted that the noble lord wields a pen rather philosophic than popular, with the result that _Before the War_ (CASSELL) tells a story of the highest interest in a manner that can only be called ponderous. Our ex-War Minister is, at least chiefly, responding to the literary offensives of BETHMANN-HOLLWEG and TIRPITZ, in connection with whose books his should be read, if the many references are properly to be understood. As every reader will know, however, Lord HALDANE could hardly have delivered his apologia before the accuser without the gates and not at the same time had an eye on the critic within. Fortunately it is here no part of a reviewer's task to obtrude his own political theories. With regard to the chief indictment, of having permitted the country to be taken unawares, the author betrays his legal training by a defence which is in effect (1) that circumstances compelled our being so taken, and that (2) we weren't. On this and other matter, however, the individual reader, having paid his money (7_s_. 6_d_. net), remains at liberty to take his choice. One revelation at least emerges clearly enough from Lord HALDANE'S pages--the danger of playing diplomat to a democracy. "Extremists, whether Chauvinist or Pacifist, are not helpful in avoiding wars" is one of many conclusions, double-edged perhaps, to which he is led by retrospect of his own trials.