DEAR SIR,--With me it is a gift. It just came to me. On the other hand my friends often suggest my seeing a doctor, as they think there may be a piece of bone pressing on the brain. DEAR SIR,--I used to suffer from red hair, and gradually I am getting the stuff turned grey. By the way, can you give me a rhyme for "Camouflage"? DEAR SIR,--I began writing lyrics for ragtime revues, because I wanted to see what would happen if I just took hold of the pen and let her rip. * * * * * From a calendar:-- "October 31. Wednesday. August to October Game Certificates expire, Mystical carpeted earth, with dead leaves of desire, Disrobing earth dying beneath love's fire." The rhymes are all right, but the scansion of the first line is susceptible of improvement. * * * * * [Illustration: _Fair Lecturer_ (_to Food Economy Committee_). "OF COURSE I HAD TO MAKE IT AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE TO REACH A RATHER LOW LEVEL OF INTELLECT. I HOPE YOU ALL UNDERSTOOD."] * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS_.) It would seem that "BARTIMEUS" occupies the same relative position towards the silent Navy of 1917 that JOHN STRANGE WINTER did towards the Army of the pre-KIPLING era. All his men are magnificent fellows, his women sympathetic and courageous. The Hun, depicted as an unsportsman-like brute (which he is), invariably gets it in the neck (which, I regret to say, he doesn't). And so all is for the best in the best of all possible services. In the Navy they are nothing if not consistent and, while the military storyteller who did not have his knife into the higher command would be looked upon as a freak, "BARTIMEUS" loyally includes amongst his galaxy of perfect people Lords of the Admiralty no less than the lower ratings. No one knows the Navy and its business better than "BARTIMEUS," and he owes his popularity to that fact. Yet he tells us very little about it, preferring to dwell on the personal attributes of his individual heroes, throwing in just enough incidental detail to give his stories the proper sea tang. Of late a good many people have been busy informing us that the Navy, like GILBERT'S chorus-girl, is no better than it should be. But the fault, if there be one, does not lie with the men that "BARTIMEUS" has selected to write about in his latest novel, _The Long Trick_ (CASSELL), which will therefore lose none of the appreciation it deserves on that account. And with such a leal and brilliant champion to take the part of the Navy afloat, the Navy ashore, whether in Parliament or out of it, may very well be left to take care of itself. * * * * *