At first the manifesto was treated as a joke,
A boyish ebullition that soon would end in smoke;
But when he took to writing in strict and fluent rhyme
His family decided to extirpate the crime.
Two scientific doctors declared he was insane,
But likely under treatment his reason to regain;
So he's now in an asylum, where he listens at his meals
To a gramophone recital of the choicest bits from _Wheels_.
* * * * *
THE RETURN TO WOAD.
"The bride's mother was handsomely attired in heliotrope stain."--
_Canadian Paper._
* * * * *
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
Whatever else may be said about Mr. ARTHUR COMPTON-RICKETT as a novelist,
it can at least be urged for him that he displays no undue apprehension of
the too-facile laugh. For example, the humorous possibilities (or perils)
in the plot of _The Shadow of Stephen Wade_ (JENKINS) might well have
daunted a writer of more experience. _Stephen Wade_ was an ancestor, dead
some considerable time before the story opens, and--to quote the old
jest--there was no complaint about a circumstance with which everybody was
well satisfied. The real worry over _Stephen_ was twofold: first, that in
life he had been rightly suspected of being rather more than a bit of a
rip, and secondly that his grandson, _Philip_, the hero of the story, had
what seemed to him good cause for believing that _Stephen's_ more
regrettable tendencies were being repeated in himself.
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