What had our genial contemporary done to deserve this?
"Turkish newspapers received in Copenhagen contain long lists of names of prominent Arabs who have been hanged for treason or for absenting themselves from military service. Overleaf is another list of well-known Arabs living in Great Britain and the British Colonies, who are cordially invited to return without delay."--_Morning Paper._
Dilly ducks, dilly ducks, come and be killed.
[Illustration: _Wife._ "Two bottles of ginger-beer, dear?"
_He._ "Why, yes. Have you forgotten that this is the anniversary of our wedding-day?"]
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
It is pleasant to find that even in these days the revival of interest in volumes of short stories still continues. But of course the stories must have a certain quality. I am glad to think that _Traveller's Samples_ (MILLS AND BOON) will help forward the movement. Mrs. HENRY DUDENEY has a quite excellent touch for this sort of thing; her tales are both atmospheric and, for their length, astonishingly full of character. Also she has an engaging habit of avoiding the expected. Take one of the best in this present book, called "_John_," for instance. It is the slightest possible thing, just a picture of a schoolboy's hopeless love for a shallow cruel-brained girl eight years older than himself, who is in process of getting engaged to an eligible bachelor. But every figure in the little group lives. And the second part, which tells the return of the boy-lover twelve years later, shows you what I mean about Mrs. DUDENEY'S refreshing originality. I doubt if there are many writers who would have finished off the story in her very satisfactory way. There is one quality characteristic of most of the tales--a feeling for middle-age in men and women; many of them seem to be variations upon the same theme of a love that comes by waiting. Mrs. DUDENEY can handle this situation with unfailing charm. Her confessed comedies are by far the weakest things in the book; there is one of them indeed that seemed to me amazingly pointless. But with this exception I can commend her volume whole-heartedly, and only hope that the author will continue to send out goods of such excellent workmanship, "as per" (whatever that means) these attractive samples.