The case is plain; the issue is distinct; You either answer now or out you trot (And kindly make that answer quite succinct): _Have all the dumps been sold, or have they not_? * * * * * "WEDDING ROMANCE. "The acquaintanceship soon developed into a house where Miss ---- was living."--_Daily Paper_. The chief obstacle to matrimony being thus removed, there could, of course, be only one end to the story. * * * * * "The Committee has decided to call the contest the 'Golden Apple Challenge,' having in mind the legend of Paris giving a golden apple to Helen of Troy as the fairest of the three beautiful women who came to ask his judgment."--_Daily Mail_. Personally we never attach much importance to these Paris legends. * * * * * [Illustration: MORE ADVENTURES OF A POST-WAR SPORTSMAN. _Master_. "HI! YOU! 'WARE BEANS. DON'T YOU KNOW BEANS WHEN YOU SEE 'EM?" _P.-W.S._ "THEY'RE THE LITTLE THINGS THEY PUTS IN TINS WITH PORK, AIN'T THEY?"] * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks_.) During the past few years the plays and stories, especially the stories, of ANTON TCHEHOV have so triumphantly captured English-speaking readers that there must be many who will welcome with eagerness the volume of his _Letters_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS). This happy chance we owe, of course, directly to Mrs. CONSTANCE GARNETT, who here proves once again that in her hands translation ranks as a fine art. Both the _Letters_ and the Biographical Sketch that precedes them are of extraordinary charm and interest. Because TCHEHOV'S stories are so conspicuously uncoloured by the personality of their writer (his method being, as it were, to lead the reader to a window of absolute transparency and bid him look for himself), it comes almost as a shock to find how vivid and many-hued that personality in fact was. Nor is it less astonishing to observe a nature so alive with sympathy expressing itself in an art so detached. More than once his letters to literary friends are concerned with a defence of this method: "Let the jury judge them; it's my job simply to show what sort of people they are." They are filled also with a thousand instances of the author's delight in nature, in country sights and scents, and of his love and understanding for animals (from which of the Tales is it that one recalls the dog being lifted into the cart "wearing a strained smile"?) Throughout too, if you have already read the eight little volumes that contain the stories--which I certainly advise as a preliminary--you will be continually experiencing the pleasure of recognising the inspiration for this or that remembered scene. In short, one of the most fascinating books that has come my way for a long time.