* * * * *

LOVE AT THE CINEMA.

  Inert I watched the Hero sacked
    For lapses clearly not his own;
      The midnight murder on the cliff,
      The wonted ante-nuptial tiff,
      The orange-blossoms, bored me stiff. 
  The picture-hall was simply packed,
    But I was all alone.

  Alone!  Two little hours could span
    The gloom that bound me stark and grim
      (No melancholy pierced me through
      Before the 7.32
      Had ravished Barbara from view),
  And yet I brooked it like a man
    Until I noticed HIM.

  He sat extravagantly near
    His Heart’s Delight.  To my distress,
      When temporary twilight fell,
      He squeezed her hand (and squeezed it well!),
      Possessed her waist, and in that shell,
  That damask shell she calls an ear,
    Breathed words of tenderness.

  The blood ran riot to my head
    And still I held my madness thrall,
      My lips repressed the frenzied shriek,
      My straining heart was stout as teak;
      But, when he kissed her mantling cheek,
  I broke—­and two attendants led
    Me wailing from the hall.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE LOST CHRISTMAS PRESENT.

Maid (to postman delivering long-delayed parcel).  “WHAT IS IT?”

Postman.  “LABEL SAYS, ‘WILD DUCKS,’ BUT THEY’RE ’UMMING-BIRDS NOW".]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(BY MR. PUNCH’S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS.)

There is at least one thing that will surprise you about It Happened in Egypt (METHUEN), and that is that, although C.N. and A.M.  WILLIAMSON are the writers, motor-cars are hardly so much as mentioned throughout.  It is a tale of the Nile and the Desert, of camels and caravans, told with a quite extraordinary power of making you feel that you have visited the scenes described.  But this, of course, if you have any previous experience of the WILLIAMSON method, will not surprise you at all.  As for the story that strings the scenes together, though it promised well, with almost every possible element of fictional excitement—­buried treasure, and spies, and abductions, and secrets—­somehow the result was not wholly up to the expectation thus created.  To borrow an appropriate simile, the great thrill remained something of a mirage, always in sight and never actually reached.  Also I wish to record my passionate protest against stories of treasure-trove in which the treasure is not taken away in sacks and used to enrich the hunters; I am all against leaving it underground, for whatever charming and romantic reasons.  No, it is not so much as a novel of adventure that might have happened pretty well anywhere that I advise you to read this book, but as a super-guide to scenes and sensations that happen in Egypt and nowhere else.  From the moment when, as one of the WILLIAMSON party, you sit down to breakfast on the terrace of Shepherd’s, till you take leave of your fellow-travellers in the mountain-tomb of QUEEN CANDACE, you will enjoy the nearest possible approach to a luxurious Egyptian tour, under delightful guidance, and at an inclusive fare of six shillings.