Métropole, is so effective, that the Architect, Mr. WATERHOUSE, R.A.,
is likely to receive many commissions for the erection of similar
hostelries at our principal marine resorts. He will take out
letters patent for change of name, and be known henceforward as Mr.
SEA-WATERHOUSE, R.A. By the way, the Directors of the Gordon Hotels
Co. wish it to be generally known that they have not started a
juvenile hotel for half-price children, under the name of the Gordon
Boys' Hotel.

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

[Illustration]

Who remembers a certain story called, if I remember aright, _The
Wheelbarrow of Bordeaux_, that appeared in a Christmas Number of the
_Illustrated London News_ some years ago? If no one else does, I do,
says the Baron; and that sensational story was a sensational sell,
wherein the agony was piled up to the "n'th," and just as the secret
was about to be disclosed, the only person who knew it, and was on
the point of revealing it, died. This is the sort of thing that Mr.
RUDYARD KIPLING has just done in this month's _Lippincott's Magazine_.
It is told in a plain, rough and ready, blunt style, but so blunt that
there's no point in it. And the idea,--that is if the idea be that the
likeness of the assassin remains on the retina of the victim's eye,
and can be reproduced by photography,--is not a novelty. Perhaps
this story in _Lippincott_ comes out of one of Mr. RUDYARD KIPLING'S
pigeon-holes, and was just chucked in haphazard, because Editorial
_Lippincott_ wanted something with the name of the KIPLING, "bright