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OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

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

In the list of heroic young soldier-authors whose gifts the War has revealed to us only to snatch them away, the name of DONALD HANKEY already holds an honoured place.  It will, therefore, be good news to the many admirers of A Student in Arms that a further selection of these heartening and fine-spirited papers has been prepared under the title of A Student in Arms—­Second Series (MELROSE).  The thousands who already know and admire Lieut.  HANKEY’S work will need no introduction to this, which exhibits all the qualities of courage and sympathy that have given the former book a world-wide popularity.  They, and others, will however welcome the occasion afforded here of learning something about the life and personality of the writer, which they will do both from the short preface contributed by one whose identity is hardly disguised under the initials “H.M.A.H.,” and from a couple of papers, autobiographical, that end the volume.  Rugbieans especially will be interested to read DONALD HANKEY’S recollections of his school-days, with their tribute to the house-master affectionately known to so many generations as “Jackey.”  A book, in short, that will add to the admiration and regret with which its author is spoken of in three continents.

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He Looked in My Window (CHATTO AND WINDUS), by ROBERT HALIFAX, gives the adventures of Ruth Shadd, decentest of dwellers in a meanish street, during her determined hunt for a husband.  It would have been easy to make all this unlovely in its frankness, but the author very skilfully (and, I think, very sincerely) avoids this. Ruth is a fine girl, with character and candour, those too rare assets, and having pursued, and found wanting, Bert, the swanker, who hasn’t the courage for matrimony; the polite and fatuously prudent Archie, and Joe, the vegetarian, who had such exalted faith in malt, she wins a deserved happiness with someone that she had never even thought of pursuing.  Mr. HALIFAX gives me an impression of almost cinematographic and gramophonic exactness in his portraiture. George Shadd, Ruth’s father, who worked in the gasworks and was one of the very best, delighted me particularly, with his pathetic little garden, his battle with the slugs and black-fly, and his fine patience with Mrs. Shadd, who put her washing before his fire and her props among his choicest seedlings—­a difficult woman indeed.  The author writes with humour and sympathy; and that is the way to write of this brave if narrow life.  It is the first time I have looked in Mr. HALIFAX’S window.  I shall take steps to do so again.  ’Tis a nice clean window.

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