And think how terribly you would mind
If, even for a joke,
You said a thing that seemed unkind
To the dear little fairy folk.
I'm sure they're simply everywhere,
So _promise_ me that you'll take care.
R.F.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Harold (_after a violent display of affection)._
"'TISN'T 'COS I LOVE YOU--IT'S 'COS YOU SMELL SO NICE."]
* * * * *
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks_.)
The Great Man is, I suppose, among the most difficult themes to treat
convincingly in fiction. To name but one handicap, the author has in
such cases to postulate at least some degree of acquaintance on the
part of the reader with his celebrated subject. "Everyone is now
familiar," he will observe, "with the sensational triumph achieved by
the work of X----;" whereat the reader, uneasily conscious of never
having heard of him, inclines to condemn the whole business beforehand
as an impossible fable. I fancy Mr. SOMERSET MAUGHAM felt something of
this difficulty with regard to the protagonist of his quaintly-called
_The Moon and Sixpence_ (HEINEMANN), since, for all his sly pretence
of quoting imaginary authorities, we have really only his unsupported
word for the superlative genius of _Charles Strickland_,
the stockbroker who abandoned respectable London to become a
Post-impressionist master, a vagabond and ultimately a Pacific
Islander.
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