"ZOLA on War," intensifies the "Hola!" Of purists who are all for "war on ZOLA!" Well, he whose pen is touched with tints from Tophet, Is the right man to pose as Red War's Prophet! * * * * * A TRIFLE FOR _THE BUILDER_.--"When are houses like difficulties?" And the practical man replies, "When they have to be 'faced.'" * * * * * [Illustration: THE RULING PASSION STRONG AT DINNER. _Laconic Waiter_ (_thoroughly familiar with Sporting Major's taste in Champagne_). "SEVENTY-FOUR, SIR?" _Sporting Major_ (_down on his luck, after a bad week at Newmarket_). "SEVEN-TO-FOUR, SIR! DASH IT! WOULDN'T TAKE TEN TO ONE ABOUT ANYTHING!"] * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. [Illustration] "Respected ANDREW LANG," writes the Baron's Assistant Reader, "I have read your criticism in _Longman's Magazine_ upon Mr. BARRY PAIN's _In a Canadian Canoe_. It's an ugly piece of bludgeon work, I admit, but not convincing to anyone who has read the book of which you speak. You tear away a line or two from the context, and ask your readers to say if _that_ is wit or humour. How your admirers would have protested had any sacrilegious critic ventured to treat one of your own immortal works in this manner. _Essays in Little_, a book which, by the way, appeared in the same series for which Mr. BARRY PAIN wrote, is a pleasant and inoffensive compilation, but even _Essays in Little_ would have presented a sorry appearance if, let us say, ANDREW LANG had reviewed it in this perfunctory and extractory and arbitrary fashion. I remember that in that case the critics were respectfully enthusiastic. Even Mr. BLUDYER would have doffed his cap, I fancy, to one Who rhymes, researches and reviews, Who sometimes writes like Genesis, And sometimes in the _Daily News_.