That golf isn't dear.
Cheery Sportsman. "Had six falls in two days, have you? Well, cheer up. Your luck's bound to change soon. These things always come in cycles."
Rough Rider. "Mine seem to come in motor lorries."
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
The news that Mr. Stephen Leacock has published a fresh series of burlesques will, I do not doubt, add to the Christmas jollity of a vast crowd of laughter-lovers. The name of it is Winsome Winnie, and other New Nonsense Novels (Lane), and I can only describe it in that pet phrase of the house-agents as "examined and strongly recommended" for the merriest five-shillings' worth that I have enjoyed this long time. If ever a volume demanded to be read aloud over the Yule log here it is. Which of the eight novels is the most irresistible must remain, I suppose, a matter of individual taste; for myself I found the opening chapter in the title-tale the funniest thing in the collection, and that not forgetting the billiard match in the detective story, a contest that I defy anyone to follow without tears. To attempt analysis of such happily unforced humour would be a dark and dreadful task; but I incline to think that, more than most, the fun of Mr. Leacock (to be accurate one should, I suppose, say Dr. Leacock) depends upon the sudden tripping-up of the reader in his moment of fancied security. The cliché, with its deceptive appearance of solid and familiar ground, conceals an unexpected trap. Thus Winnie, the thrown-upon-the-world heroine, asked by the family lawyer how she proposes to gain a livelihood, replies in consecrated phrase, "I have my needle." "Let me see it," says the lawyer. But I grow pedantic; far more important than the method of this little book is its gift of seasonable entertainment, for which we need only wipe our eyes and be grateful.