"No," said he firmly. "I have one of the most important practices in Harley Street. I likewise possess one of the finest collections of old magazines in the profession. That blue-book on Aniline Dyes is barely fifty years old. It was left me by my father, and I retain it simply through affection for him in spite of its modernity. But the rest go back to the Crimean vintage and earlier. When you have something really old, come to me. But"--and he threw in a winning smile in his best bedside manner--"not till then." I am now in search of a young practitioner who is merely starting a collection. * * * * * [Illustration SCENE.--_A Flower Show: Garden Ornament Section._ _Mother._ "I DON'T CARE FOR THAT LITTLE FIGURE. HE'S TOO EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FOR MY TASTE." _Critical Little Girl_ (_who has lately taken part in tableaux-vivants_). "HOW CAN YOU TELL WHAT CENTURY HE IS, MOTHER? HE'S GOT NO CLOTHES ON."] * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._) If sorrow's crown of sorrow is as the poet says, it should be equally true that there is enough satisfaction in remembering unhappier things to ensure success for _The Crisis of the Naval War_ (CASSELL), the large and dignified volume in which Admiral of the Fleet Viscount JELLICOE OF SCAPA, G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O., reminds us how near the German submarines came to triumph in 1917, and details the various ways by which their menace was overcome. It is a solid book, written with authority, and addressed rather to the expert than to the casual reader; but even the latter individual (the middle-aged home-worker, for instance, remembering the rationed plate of beans and rice that constituted his lunch in the Spring of 1917) can thrill now to read of the precautions this represented, and the multiform activities that kept that distasteful dish just sufficiently replenished. I have observed that Viscount JELLICOE avoids any approach to sensationalism. His book however contains a number of exceedingly interesting photographs of convoys at sea, smoke-screens, depth-charges exploding, and the like, which the most uninformed can appreciate. And in at least one feature of "counter-measures," the history of the decoy or mystery ships, the record is of such exalted and amazing heroism that not the strictest language of officialdom can lessen its power to stir the heart. Who, for example, could read the story of _The Prize_, and the involuntary tribute from the captured German commander that rounds it off, without a glow of gratitude and pride? Do you recall how we would attempt to stifle curiosity with the unsatisfactory formula, "We shall know some day"? Here in this authoritative volume is another corner of the curtain lifted. * * * * *