_Laconic Waiter_ (_thoroughly familiar with Sporting Major's taste in
Champagne_). "SEVENTY-FOUR, SIR?"
_Sporting Major_ (_down on his luck, after a bad week at Newmarket_).
"SEVEN-TO-FOUR, SIR! DASH IT! WOULDN'T TAKE TEN TO ONE ABOUT
ANYTHING!"]
* * * * *
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
[Illustration]
"Respected ANDREW LANG," writes the Baron's Assistant Reader, "I have
read your criticism in _Longman's Magazine_ upon Mr. BARRY PAIN's _In
a Canadian Canoe_. It's an ugly piece of bludgeon work, I admit, but
not convincing to anyone who has read the book of which you speak. You
tear away a line or two from the context, and ask your readers to say
if _that_ is wit or humour. How your admirers would have protested
had any sacrilegious critic ventured to treat one of your own immortal
works in this manner. _Essays in Little_, a book which, by the way,
appeared in the same series for which Mr. BARRY PAIN wrote, is a
pleasant and inoffensive compilation, but even _Essays in Little_
would have presented a sorry appearance if, let us say, ANDREW LANG
had reviewed it in this perfunctory and extractory and arbitrary
fashion. I remember that in that case the critics were respectfully
enthusiastic.
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