* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS_.)

It would seem that "BARTIMEUS" occupies the same relative position
towards the silent Navy of 1917 that JOHN STRANGE WINTER did towards
the Army of the pre-KIPLING era. All his men are magnificent fellows,
his women sympathetic and courageous. The Hun, depicted as an
unsportsman-like brute (which he is), invariably gets it in the neck
(which, I regret to say, he doesn't). And so all is for the best in
the best of all possible services. In the Navy they are nothing if
not consistent and, while the military storyteller who did not have
his knife into the higher command would be looked upon as a freak,
"BARTIMEUS" loyally includes amongst his galaxy of perfect people
Lords of the Admiralty no less than the lower ratings. No one knows
the Navy and its business better than "BARTIMEUS," and he owes his
popularity to that fact. Yet he tells us very little about it,
preferring to dwell on the personal attributes of his individual
heroes, throwing in just enough incidental detail to give his stories
the proper sea tang. Of late a good many people have been busy
informing us that the Navy, like GILBERT'S chorus-girl, is no better
than it should be. But the fault, if there be one, does not lie with
the men that "BARTIMEUS" has selected to write about in his latest
novel, _The Long Trick_ (CASSELL), which will therefore lose none of
the appreciation it deserves on that account. And with such a leal
and brilliant champion to take the part of the Navy afloat, the Navy
ashore, whether in Parliament or out of it, may very well be left to
take care of itself.