“No one to stand by tack an’ sheet when it’s comin’ on to blow;
  Never the roar of ‘Rio Grande’ to the watch’s stamp-an’-go;
  An’ the seagulls settin’ along the rail an’ callin’ the long day through,
  Like the souls of old dead sailor-men as used to be ’er crew.

  “Never a port of all ’er ports for ’er to fetch again,
  Nothin’ only the sea an’ the sky, the sun, the wind an’ the rain;
  It’s cruel ‘ard on a decent ship, an’ so I tell you true,
  An’ I wish I knew she ’ad gone to ’er rest as a good ship ought to do.”

C.F.S.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Mabel.  “WHAT SORT OF A DANCE WAS IT LAST NIGHT?  HOW DID YOU GET ON?”

Gladys.  “OH, ALL RIGHT.  I WAS UP TO MY KNEES IN BOYS ALL THE EVENING.”]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(By Mr. Punch’s Staff of Learned Clerks.)

Generally speaking, stories left unfinished because of the death of the writer in mid course can only be at best an uncomfortable, exasperating legacy to his admirers.  But by a thrice happy chance this is not the case with the two novels upon which the late HENRY JAMES was engaged at the time of his fatal illness.  This good fortune comes from the fact that it was the writer’s habit “to test and explore,” in a written or dictated sketch, the possible developments of any theme before embarking upon its treatment in detail.  I get the phrase “test and explore,” than which there could be no better, from the brief preface to the volume now before me, The Ivory Tower (COLLINS).  It exactly suggests the method of this preliminary study, doubly precious now, both as supplying the key by which we can understand the fragment that has been worked out, and as in itself giving us a glimpse, wonderfully fascinating, of its evolution. The Ivory Tower (called so characteristically after an object whose bearing upon the intrigue is of the slightest) is a study of wealth in its effect upon the mutual relations of a small group of persons belonging to the plutocracy of pre-war America.  Its special motive was to be a development of situation as between a young legatee, in whom the business instinct is entirely wanting, and his friend and adviser, whom he was presently to detect in dishonest dealing, yet refrain from any act of challenge that would mean exposure.  “Refrain”—­does this not give you in one word the whole secret of what would have been a study in character and emotion obviously to the taste of the writer?  For itself, and still more for the glimpse of what it was to become, The Ivory Tower must have a place in every collection where the unmatchable wit of HENRY JAMES is honoured as it should be.

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