When they ask you to publish their sloppy, Sophistical, impudent screeds, Think, editors, less of "good copy" And more of the national needs; For whether they pontify sadly, Or flout us in cap and in bells, Pontifical patter and arrogant chatter Are worse than the enemy's shells. There's a saying that's frequently quoted, And cannot be wholly ignored, That the pen, when its force can be noted, Is a mightier thing than the sword; But the mightiness doesn't reside in The pen, but the writer behind, Who, if hostile to reason or bent upon treason, No deadlier weapon can find. In Peace, in the times that were piping, When pacifists bade us disarm, This smart intellectual sniping Did less recognisable harm; But now, in the hour of its peril, The country is sick of its Shaws, And hurls to the devil the sophists who revel In pleading the enemy's cause. * * * * * [Illustration: _Tommy_ (_to his pal in middle of charge_). "LOOK OUT, BILL. YOUR BOOTLACE IS UNDONE!"] * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._) This paragraph will, I hope, catch your eye in time to be of use as a guide in the holiday fairy-tale traffic. But at worst there are always birthdays or, for nursery gifts, those even more apt occasions known as Nothing-in-particular Days. (_Humpty-Dumpty_, you remember, a recognised authority, used to call them un-birthdays.) Anyhow, if you should be looking about for something applicable to Kit or Ursula, you may take my word that you will find nothing better than _The Dream Pedlar_ (SIMPKIN, MARSHALL). The letterpress--I beg your pardon, I should have said the "reading"--is by Lady MARGARET SACKVILLE, who has clearly a pretty taste in fairy matters, and the pictures are by FLORENCE ANDERSON in colour, and CLARA SHIRLEY HAYWARD in black-and-white. I don't say that all these are of equal merit, but the best of them are delightful. Moreover, although in the modern sumptuous fashion the colour plates are introduced on brown-paper mounts, still they have the practical merit of being fixed, and not merely gummed at one corner, a fashion that simply results in litter for the nursery floor. The tales themselves are wholly charming, and about quite the right people, kings and woodcutters and dream-princesses and goblins. Perhaps now and again Lady MARGARET falls to the temptation of being a thought too clever with an aside, so to speak, whispered in the ear of the reader-aloud. But the wise child will forgive her this for the compelling charm of her simplicities. For me, if I had a favourite in the tales, it was perhaps _Martin's godmother_, "an attractive old lady, short, with large fan-like ears, which she would wave to and fro when amused." There is an enchanting picture of her doing it. I have