OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
"What so interests you?" asked the visitor. Replied the Baron, "Japhet in Search of a Father. I have not read it since my school days." "You find it old-fashioned, eh?" "Well," answered the Baron, "the first few chapters are certainly old-fashioned, and recall to my memory the italicised, punning style of Theodore Hook and of Tom and Jerry. But Captain Marryat soon gets away from this sort of thing; and when he has once fairly started his hero and his companion on their adventures, the interest of the story is never allowed to flag for a minute. I may add that I have not enjoyed any modern story of adventure so much as I have this one—always barring the romances of Rider Haggard, Stephenson, 'Q.,' Shorthouse, and Parker—as there is about it an old Georgian-era flavour, with its duels, its gambling-houses, its Tom-and-Jerry episodes, its occasional drop into melodrama, its varied characters of the period, its animal spirits and 'go,' that makes it—to me, at least—thoroughly fascinating." The illustrations, by H. M. Brock—which are specified as separately the property of Messrs. Macmillan—bring vividly before the reader the manners and customs of the time. "In these days of morbid yellow-jaundiced sensationalism, and of 'The New Woman,' I am delighted," quoth the Baron, "to recommend, and strongly, too, this first of the series of Captain Marryat's works, now in course of republication chez Macmillan." The visitor thanked his noble friend, and withdrew. Then the Baron finished the novel. "Good!" quoth the Baron, closing the book with regret at parting with a long-forgotten but now recovered friend; "but 'tis odd how one lives and learns. I do not remember having ever heard that Bottom the weaver had been christened 'William' by Shakspeare. Nor can I find that bully Bottom was so addressed by his friends. And if I have missed it, how came William to be the prénom of the Athenian weaver in the time of Theseus and Hippolyta! I should as soon expect to discover that Hercules was known to his companions as Henry Hercules. However, this by the way, and only à propos of a remark as to William Bottom, the weaver, made by Marryat. I anticipate with pleasure re-making the acquaintance of Jacob Faithful and Midshipman Easy."
The Banishment of Jessop Blythe, written by Joseph Hatton, and published by Hutchinson, belongs to the Yellow Book series, only that is as far as the cover is concerned, which is of a startlingly jaundiced tone and does not in the least represent the kindly author's views of life. The story is about the ropemakers by one who clearly "knows the ropes." This industry, as will be gathered from the present romance, is not confined to Ropemaker's Walk, E.C., but was for two centuries carried on by Troglodytes or Cave-dwellers in Derbyshire. The hero Blythe is turned out from the roping community as a thriftless drunkard, emigrates, is poor and wretched, but returns Blythe and gay, with a lot of money to find.... "But here," quoth the Baron, "I must pause, or the surprise will be heavily discounted, and the reader's pleasure spoilt. Thus far, no farther. 'Tolle; lege.'" So recommended the
Judicious Baron de B.-W.