_Thursday._--Back to town. TOMKINS looks in. Says he saw SMITH the other day. Then looks curiously all round room. "Do you keep eggs in this room?" he asks; "hot weather turned 'em bad, eh?" Explain that I have used sulphuretted hydrogen. "Those chemical things," he says, holding his nose, "are not half so good as plain, homely preparations. The finest thing of all is to soak all your clothes in gin and peppermint. Had it from a man who ought to know, for he spent last autumn in Hamburg and used bottles full." Thank him with sincere gratitude, and as soon as possible try this new precaution. To theatre. People near me begin a great talking. Commissionaire asks me to leave. Says "money will be returned." Hanged if I go! I've paid for this seat. Then a fearful uproar starts. Do not remember details of fight, but find myself "chucked" into the roadway. Policeman picks me up as drunk and incapable. Spend night in police-cell. * * * * Explanations magisterially accepted.... Apology given and taken. Off (with the cummerbund), and away for a tour in the North. * * * * * [Illustration: A VERY GREAT MAN. (_Cub Hunting._) _Young Farmer._ "WELL, MASTER JACK! OUT AGAIN?" _Master Jack._ "WHY, YES. FACT IS, YOU KNOW, ALWAYS LIKE TO GET AS MUCH IN AS POSSIBLE BEFORE WE BEGIN TO ADVERTISE. BRINGS SUCH A BEASTLY LOT O' DUFFERS OUT, DON'T YOU KNOW!"] * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. CHATTO AND WINDUS have just issued a new edition of OUIDA'S _Dog of Flanders_. The well-got-up and cheaply-priced volume contains three other Stories, nearly as charming. In the quartette OUIDA, my Baronite says, will be found at her best--OUIDA, without the weeds of grossness and comical classicality that sometimes grow in her pastures. Of this volume of her works it may be said that, happily, LEMPRIÈRE is not in it. To those about to travel, whether there and back, or there or back, is immaterial, the Baron strongly recommends _The Great Shadow_ and _Beyond the City_, two stories in one volume by CONAN DOYLE, published in ARROWSMITH'S three and sixpenny series. It is a long time since the Baron has read a more dramatically told story than that of _The Great Shadow_. Truly, if his opinion had been asked, he would have seriously advised any novelist against attempting, in any form, a description of the Battle of Waterloo. Yet, though CONAN DOYLE has done it admirably, there is, thinks the Baron, just one chapter too much of this work. No one, since CHARLES LEVER wrote, has achieved anything like it, though there is just a smack of _Orthis Mulcaney & Co._ about it which--"but that is another story." The Baron finding no fault with the illustrations as illustrations, wishes that the tales had been left to themselves, and that they had been told without these superfluous aids. It is a pleasure to recommend such a book, and it _is_ recommended by everybody's trusted Literary Adviser, THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS.