"Bicycles of old-fashioned design acquired a new lease of life, and took to the road, where they were joined by pony traps in which father, mother and many children, all with crimped hair and white pinafores, were tightly packed."--_Daily Paper_. Father, we are told, looked a perfect darling. * * * * * [Illustration: THE RULING PASSION. _Absentee._ "I WAS PLAYING FOOT-BA' IN THE STREET, AND THE POLICE TOOK AND LOCKED ME UP FOR FOUR HOURS." _Teacher._ "DID YOU GET ANYTHING TO EAT?" _Absentee._ "AY--A HARD ROLL." _Teacher_. "WHAT DID YOU DO WITH IT?" _Absentee_. "PLAYED FOOT-BA'."] * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._) The title, somewhat puzzling at first, which Miss F.E. MILLS YOUNG has given to her latest story, _The Almonds of Life_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), turns out to be based upon a Chinese proverb to the effect that "almonds came to those who have no teeth." This rather devastating sample of philosophy (which I have put by for use against the next person who attempts to work off upon me the adage about those who wait) forms the text of a well-told tale of misplaced affections. As you may expect, if you know Miss YOUNG'S former work, it is a South African story, not concerned however with Boers and natives and the trackless veld, but with coastwise civilization and suburban garden-parties. As before, the author excellently conveys the place-feeling, so well indeed that I was sorry when the love intrigues of the two protagonists necessitated their quitting Africa for a more conventional Italian setting. I may summarise the plot by telling you that the particular almond that fell too late to the heroine was somebody else's husband. But it wasn't so much that she was unable to eat him as that he proved indigestible when swallowed. The lady was _Gerda_, young and dazzling bride of the middle-aged _Fred Wooten_, and the gentleman one of her husband's closest friends, also (before the arrival of _Gerda_) happily married to a wife whom I found the most attractive person in the book. I need not further detail the crooked course of untrue love, though I may hint at a fault in balance, where your sympathy, previously and rightly enlisted for poor betrayed _Fred_, is demanded for _Gerda_ in her difficulty with the almond. As usual, Miss YOUNG unfolds her plot with admirable directness, chiefly through a natural and unforced dialogue, so easy that it disguises its own art. * * * * *