* * * * * [Illustration: ONCE BIT, TWICE SHY. _Sporting Lawyer._ "IF YOU'LL TAKE MY ADVICE YOU'LL COME TO THE BRIDGE!" _Old Farmer._ "NA FEAR! SIX-AND-EIGHTPENCE FOR T' ADVICE? I'D RATHER CHANCE A DUCKIN'."] * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._) When _Hargrave Ladd_, who was a solicitor in a very fair way of business, with an agreeable but unemotional wife, happened to be getting into an omnibus at the moment when _Stella Rayne_ fell off the top of it, he unconsciously put himself in the way of a lot of bother. Naturally, as a gentleman and the male protagonist of a novel--_Let Be_ (METHUEN)--he could do no less than pick the girl out of the mud and see her home in a cab. Whether, quite strictly speaking, he need have called next day to see how she was getting over the accident is another matter. Certainly his interfering aunt, _Mrs. Dering_, was of the opinion that _Hargrave_, as a married man, was displaying an excess of courtesy towards the pretty tumbler. As for Miss SYBIL CAMPBELL LETHBRIDGE, who has written the tale, she gives no indication of her views one way or the other. Indeed this attitude of humorous tolerance for humanity is Miss LETHBRIDGE'S most striking characteristic. It is at once a source of strength and weakness to the book, making, on the one hand, for the reality of the characters, and, on the other, for a certain non-conductiveness of atmosphere that robs their emotions of warmth. Anyhow, the inevitable happens, and _Hargrave_ falls in love with _Stella_, who in turn reciprocates his passion up to almost the last page in the book, when, having come to the edge of the precipice and made every preparation for her leap into the gulf of elopement, she does a mental quick-change and walks away as the contented betrothed of Another. So _Hargrave_, making the best of a good job, rejoins _Mrs. H._; and one may suppose that, if any more distressed damsels fall off omnibuses in his presence, he will prudently "let be." You may think with me that this abrupt finish lessens the effect of an otherwise well-written and entertaining story. * * * * *