The enemy is evidently up to his old trick--taking cover behind women. * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS._) I foresee the appearance, during the next few years, of many regimental handbooks that will record the history at this present visibly and gloriously in the making. One such has already reached me, a second edition of _A Brief History of the King's Royal Rifle Corps_ (WARREN), compiled and edited by Lieut.-General Sir EDWARD HUTTON, K.C.B. It is a book to be bought and treasured by many to whom the record of a fine and famous regiment has become in these last years doubly precious. The moment of its appearance is indeed excellently opportune, from the fact that, in the first place, the K.R.R. was recruited from our brothers across the Atlantic, the 60th Royal Americans (as they were then) having been raised, in 1756, from the colonists in the Eastern States, with a view to retrieving the recent disaster to General BRADDOCK'S troops, and to provide a force that could meet the French and Indians upon equal terms. Thus the Regiment, which its historian modestly calls a typical unit of the British Army, is in its origin another link between the two great English-speaking allies of to-day. It has a record, certainly second to none, from Quebec to Ypres--one that splendidly bears out the words, themselves ringing like steel, of its motto, _Celer et Audax._ I should add that all profits from the sale of the book will go to "The Ladies' Guild of the King's Royal Rifle Corps." Friends past and present will no doubt see to it that these profits are considerable. * * * * * In _The Immortal Gamble_ (A. AND C. BLACK), by A.T. STEWART and C.J. PESHALL, the Acting Commander and Chaplain of _H.M.S. Cornwallis_ describe the part taken by their ship and its gallant complement in the bombardment of Gallipoli and the subsequent landings down to the final evacuation. The account is clear, concise, unemotional, and uncontroversial. As a glimpse rather than a survey of the Dardanelles campaign it strengthens our faith in the spirit of the race without hopelessly undermining our confidence in its intelligence. Beyond the fact that it records deeds of brave men the book has no mission, and its cheerful detachment might not, in the absence of sterner chronicles, be salutary. But as long as there are enough Commissions to publish scathing reports on this or that phase of national ineptitude it is not the publishers' business to provide cathartics for the fatted soul of a self-satisfied people. As the passing of time obliterates the futilities and burnishes the heroisms of the noblest and most forlorn adventure in the history of the race, _The Immortal Gamble_ will find a just place among the simple chronicles of courage which the War is storing up for the inspiration of the generations to come. * * * * *