[Illustration: _Valetudinarian._ "I'VE GOT CIRRHOSIS OF THE LIVER, AN
INCIPIENT CARBUNCLE ON MY NECK, INFLAMMATION OF THE DUODENUM, SEPTIC SORE
THROAT AND GENERAL PROSTRATION."

_Sympathetic Friend._ "WELL, AND HOW ARE YOU?"]

* * * * *

A KNOWING OLD BIRD.

"Grey African Parrot ... every question fully answered; £10 or offers."
--_Weekly Paper._

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)

We have had to wait four years for the concluding volumes of _The Life of
Benjamin Disraeli_ (MURRAY), but, as the engaged couple said of the tunnel,
"it was worth it," for in the interval Mr. BUCKLE has been able to enrich
his work with a wealth of new material. This includes DISRAELI'S
correspondence with QUEEN VICTORIA during his two Premierships, and the
still more remarkable letters that he wrote to the two favoured sisters,
ANNE, Lady CHESTERFIELD, and SELINA, Lady BRADFORD, during the last eight
years of his life. To one or other of them he wrote almost every day, and
from the sixteen hundred letters that have been preserved Mr. BUCKLE has
selected with happy discretion a multitude of passages which throw a vivid