Chapter VII: "punch" (2)

"'Mr. Punch' is in 'excellent fooling' this week. Rarely has he, even
he, more happily burlesqued a political situation than in Mr. Harry
Furniss's cartoon of 'The New Cabinet.' Not a word of explanation
accompanies the picture: it is good wine, needing no bush, and making
very merry. A glance suffices to seize its meaning, for it expresses a
thought that has flitted, at one time or another, through everyone's
mind. The big moment has come when Mr. Gladstone is to reveal to his
colleagues the secret he has hitherto withheld from them, not less than
from the electorate--to submit to them, masterly, succinct, complete,
the scheme which, with unexampled courage and sublimest modesty, they
have defended on trust, for which they have sacrificed their personal
independence without knowing why, and as to which, painful to remember,
they have sometimes blundered into confident and contradictory
conjecture. We can picture the subtle excitement--in one Minister of
joyful expectation, in another of horrid misgiving--under which they
have come together. Well, Mr. Gladstone unfolds the fateful document,
and lo! it is a blank sheet. Paralysis and grim despair fall upon the
spirits of the assembly; face to face with a nightmare reality, not a
man amongst them has strength to say, 'This is a dream.' At the head of
the table, his elbows resting on the parchment, and an undipped quill
actually split upon it in his angry grasp, sits the Premier, a
never-to-be-forgotten picture of impotent ill-humour. The task with
which the Cabinet is confronted, for him as for the rest, is impossible
and yet inexorable. In the candle-flame, by an effect of hallucination
natural at such a moment, the face of Mr. O'Brien seems to limn itself
out, implacable and contemptuous; and there is a fearsome shadow on the
blind--the massive head of Lord Salisbury. The candle, marked '40,' is
the majority, which dwindles while the Ministers are sadly musing; and
over the mantelpiece, behind the Premier's chair, mutely reproachful,
hangs a picture of the great Cabinet of 1880. It is distinctly the best
thing Mr. Furniss has done."

That impression was shared by my private friends as well, even those on _Punch_. My dear friend Mr. E. J. Milliken, a strong Radical, and a most active member of the staff, in a reply to a letter of mine, in which I intimated that I was afraid my cartoon would give offence, replied in a most flattering spirit.

I had to play the "villain" in another scene in the same political drama, "Mr. Punch's Historical Cartoons" (1893), in which the same Cabinet is shown in Mr. Gladstone's room in the "Bauble Shop"--the House of Commons. Those Radicals who had not joined the Unionists again took offence. Those Radicals who had become Unionist wrote to congratulate me. From one well-known and powerful personality, a historical name in the publishing world, I received the following:

"February 23rd, 1893.

"Your cartoon p. 95 delights us all. I have looked at it twenty times
and seen fresh points in it. Nothing for years, I should say, has so
entirely caught the very spirit of a great crisis.

"We shall owe something to you for this felicitous exposure of
Gladstone's insane Bill. Alas! the miners and the brickies, the
costermongers and the dust-cart drivers, have now the power. The middle
class has been out-numbered, and if it were not that some labouring men
and artisans have hard heads enough to comprehend the position we should
be landed in a pretty pickle next September.

"It is a pity traitors' heads are nowadays their own copyright."

A "copyright" in heads is a good suggestion, and coming from a publisher too! But apart from "traitors," there are others known to a caricaturist. The House of Commons at one time was rich in them. Some such works of art suffer in being translated. Indeed, what the poet "Ballyhooley" wrote of one might apply to others:

"DARWIN MacNEILL.

"Darwin MacNeill, all the papers are hot on you,
Darwin MacNeill, they are writing a lot on you.
What in the world sort of face have you got on you?
Send us your photograph, Darwin MacNeill.
Surely you must be both lovely and pure!
Have you got fatures that nothing can cure?
Let's have the first of it,
Let's know the worst of it:
Is your face only a caricature?
Here's a health to you, Darwin MacNeill,
Let penny canes all your enemies feel;
Show me the crature would slander a fature
Of the beautiful Mimber for ould Donegal.

"Our childhers are dull, and we wish to be brightening them
Send us your picture and we'll be enlightening them,
Maybe 'twill only be useful for frightening them;
Still let us have it, dear Darwin MacNeill.
Shut up the slander and talk they are at,
Show us the head you've got under your hat;
True every particle, genuine article,
Send us your picture in answer to that.
Here's a health to you, etc.

"I hear that the Queen she has simply gone crazy, man;
Says she to Gladstone, 'Get out, you old lazy man!
Cannot you see that I'll never be aisy, man,
Till I've a portrait of Darwin MacNeill?'
When of that picture she first got a sight,
She held it up, so they say, to the light,
Looked at the head of it, then all she said of it,
'I'm of opinion that Darwin is right.'
Here's a health to you, etc.

"There's just arrived now, to give great content to us,
A lovely picture, which someone has sent to us.
We know the worst now, for there has been sent to us
What's called a portrait of Darwin MacNeill.
If it's a likeness, I just tell you what,
That you have acted in ways you should not.
Don't try a turn of fists
On with the journalists;
Thrash those who gave you the head you have got.
But here's a health to you, Darwin MacNeill!
Only just manage new fatures to steal,
Then show me the crature would slander a fature
Of the beautiful Mimber for ould Donegal."

This "Pen Portrait," by Mr. Robert Martin, refers to a matter of much regret to me. I have to confess my sorrow that I was the means of making a Member of Parliament ridiculous! The innocent item came in the ordinary course of my work for _Punch_. I was sent an incident to illustrate for the Diary of Toby, M.P., which, when published, was used as an excuse to "technically assault" me in the Inner Lobby of the House of Commons.

Perhaps in the circumstances I may be pardoned if I confess a secret connected with these Parliamentary caricatures. For some years I provided a page drawing and some small cuts in every number during Parliament--the latter were generally sketches of Members of Parliament. These single portraits were supplied in advance, and engraved proofs sent in a book to Mr. Lucy to select from week by week. The following letter is worth quoting in full as a characteristic letter from the Editor, typical of his light and pleasant way of transacting business with his staff:

"Dear H. F.,--"Please keyindly see that H. L. (not 'Labby,' but 'Lucy')
has all your parliamentarians whom you (as your predecessor Henry VIII.
did) have executed on the block sent to him, as he found himself
unprovided up to the last moment and so wrote to me in his haste.

"(?) Fancy portrait. Our artist, H. F., as Henry VIII. taking off his
victims' heads on the block, eh?
"Yours, "F. C. B."

To this rule, however, there were exceptions. This particular caricature was one of them: it was drawn at the last moment to illustrate a particular passage in Mr. Lucy's Diary of Toby, M.P. Here it is:

"'Look here, Bartley,' said Tommy Bowles; 'if you're going on that tack,
you must come and sit on this side. When I saw MacNeill open his mouth
to speak, I confess I thought I was going to be swallowed whole. You sit
here; there's more of you.'"

Now had I shown "Pongo," as he was familiarly called in the House, in the act of swallowing "Tommy Bowles," I might have produced a most objectionable caricature. I made, however, a smiling portrait of the genial Member. I was away at the time recovering from a long illness: the sketch was made in the country, and sent up to the _Punch_ engraver's office. By some mistake there, it was not reduced in size in reproduction as others had been; therefore in the paper it was apparently given extra importance--I had nothing to do with that. That Mr. Lucy's reference to Mr. MacNeill is not a caricature can be judged by anyone reading the passage I had to illustrate, given above. The notion that the drawing was _purposely_ produced on a larger scale than usual, so as to give this special caricature prominence, is disproved by the fact that the caricature of the gallant and genial Admiral Field I drew exactly under the same conditions appears on the same page also far too large. Therefore it is a mistaken idea that this particular portrait was intentionally offensive, or different from others.

It was really the combination of circumstances, if anything, that called special attention to that particular page in _Punch,_ and gave rise to

A SCENE IN THE LOBBY.

I shall, in describing the curtain rising on this historical incident, borrow Mr. Lucy's own account of the way in which the Member approached me after he had seen my illustration to Mr. Lucy's clever Diary of the Week:

"It was shortly after seven o'clock that Mr. Harry Furniss strolled into the Lobby. He had been suffering from a long and severe sickness, dedicating this the first evening of his convalescence to a visit to the scene of labours which have delighted mankind. Over the place there brooded an air of ineffable peace. The bustle of the earlier hour of meeting was stilled. The drone of talk went on in the half-empty House within the glass doors. Now and then a Member hastily crossed the floor of the Lobby, intent on preparations for dinner. One of these chanced to be Mr. Swift MacNeill, a Member who, beneath occasional turbulence of manner, scarcely conceals the gentlest, kindliest disposition, a gentleman by birth and training, a scholar and a patriot. The House, whilst it sometimes laughs at his exuberance of manner, always shows that it likes him. Mr. Furniss, seeing him approach with hurried step, may naturally have expected that he was making haste to offer those congratulations on renewed health and reappearance on the scene of labour that had already been proffered from other quarters. What followed has been told by Mr. Furniss in language the simplicity and graphicness of which Defoe could not have excelled."

Mr. Lucy refers to the following account I wrote at the time:

"On my return to continue my work in Parliament for Mr. Punch after my severe illness, I found the jaded legislators yearning for fresh air, and even the approaching final division on the Home Rule Bill had failed to arouse more than a languid interest. I felt this depression when I entered the Lobby, its sole occupants being the tired-out doorkeepers and the leg-weary policemen. I really believe a swarm of wasps would not have roused them to activity, for I noticed a bluebottle resting undisturbed upon the nose of one of Inspector Horsley's staff. Even the Terrace was dusty, and the Members rusty and morose. One of the Irish Members had selected as his friend Frank Slavin, the well-known prize-fighter, who had an admiring group round him, to whom no doubt he was relating the history of his many plucky battles.

"The stimulating effect of this may have been the cause for the assault upon me in the Inner Lobby, which has afforded the stale House some little excitement, which has been the salvation of the silly season. So many papers have given startling accounts of this attack upon me, some stating that I was caned, others that I was pummelled, shaken like a dog, and so on, that I am glad to take the opportunity of giving a clear statement of what really occurred. I was standing close to the doors of the Inner Lobby, talking to Mr. Cuthbert Quilter, when Mr. Swift MacNeill interrupted us by asking me, 'Are you the man that draws the cartoons in _Punch_?' 'That depends upon what they are,' said I. 'I refer to one,' said the excited Member, 'that has annoyed me very much,' 'Let me see it,' I replied. Mr. MacNeill then drew out his pocket-book and showed me a cutting from the current number of _Punch_. 'Yes,' I said, 'that is from a drawing of mine,' 'Then ye're a low, black-guardly scoundrel,' melodramatically exclaimed the usually genial Member. Taking two or three steps back, he hissed at me, with a livid face, a series of offensive epithets too coarse for publication. Having exhausted his vocabulary of vulgarity, a happy thought seemed to strike him. 'I want to assault you,' he said, and forthwith he nervously and gingerly tapped me as if he were playing with a hot coal. He then danced off to Members who were looking on, crying, 'This is the scoundrel who has caricatured me; witness, I assault him!' and he recommenced the tapping process which constituted this technical assault. Knowing that Mr. MacNeill is a very excitable subject, and at once detecting that this assault was a 'put-up job,' I was determined to remain perfectly cool; and, truth to tell, the pirouetting of the agitated Member hugely amused me, particularly as the more excited he became, the more he resembled the caricature which was the cause, or supposed to be the cause, of this attack, I treated the hon. Member exactly as the policeman treated the bluebottle--with perfect indifference, not even troubling to brush away the trifling annoyance. But when in the midst of its buzzing round me I moved in the direction of one of the officials, it flew away. Then appeared what I had been anticipating, and the real cause of the insult transpired. Dr. Tanner came up to me just as I recollect Slavin approaching Jackson in their historic fight. He showered the grossest insults upon me, and I was surrounded at once by his clique, who were anxious for the scene which must have occurred had I, like Jackson, been the first to let out with my left. But here again was I face to face with a chronically excited Member, backed up by his friends, and I refused to be drawn into a brawl. But the secret of the real cause of this organised attack upon me was revealed to me by Dr. Tanner, who at once informed me that it was the outcome of my imitations of the Irish Members in my entertainment, 'The Humours of Parliament,' which I have given for two seasons all over the country. This was my offence; my caricature of Mr. Swift MacNeill the excuse for the attack."

Mr. MacNeill's "technical assault" was a very childish incident. He merely touched the sleeve of my coat with the tip of his finger, and asked me if I would accept that as a "technical assault." This mysterious pantomime was subsequently explained to me, and meant that I was to take out a summons--but I only laughed. At the moment Mr. MacNeill was pirouetting round me at a distance, Mr. John Burns came on to the scene, and chaffed Mr. MacNeill, drawing an imaginary picture (for Mr. Burns was not in the Lobby) of a real assault upon me. A gentleman connected with an evening paper, who happened to enter with Mr. Burns, failed to see Mr. Burns's humour, and thereupon took down in shorthand Mr. Burns's imaginary picture as a matter of fact. It was published as a fact, and, for all I know or care, some may still believe that I was assaulted!

When I read that I had been treated like a cur, I was rather amused; but when I read a statement in the papers from a man like John Burns saying that he saw me "taken by the lapels of the coat and shaken like a dog, and then taken by the ear and shaken by that," I thought the joke had been carried far enough. Determined to have this cock-and-bull story contradicted at once, I went down to the House and saw Mr. John Burns, who expressed to me his regret that he should have invented the story, and he left me to go to the writing-room, and promised I should have from him a written contradiction.

After waiting a considerable time, a message was brought to me that Mr. Burns declined to keep his promise. I therefore wrote these particulars and sent them off to the Press. At the same time Mr. Burns, who had been closeted with some Radical journalists, wrote an offensive note--which was shown me, and which I advised him to publish.

Poor Mr. MacNeill! Well may he say, "Save me from my friends!" The Press put on their comic men to make copy at his expense. If I were to publish it all, it would make a volume as large as this. By permission I publish the following lay from the _St. James' Budget_ (September, 1893):

"THE LAY OF SWIFT MACNEILL.

(_Picked up in the Lobby._)

"Have ye heard, have ye heard, of the late immortal fray,
When the lion back of Swift MacNeill got up and stood at bay,
When the lion voice of Tanner cried, 'To Judas wid yer chaff!'
An' the Saxon knees were shaking, though they made believe to laugh.

"'Twas widin the Commons' Lobby, in the corner by the dure,
There was Misther Harry Furniss a-standing on the flure,
When up to him came stalking, like O'Tarquin in his pride,
The bowldest of the bowld, MacNeill, wid the Docther by his side.

"Then the valiant Swift MacNeill from his pocket he took out
A picther very like him, an' he brandished it about,
An' he held it up to Furniss for his Saxon eyes to see,
An' he asked of him, 'Ye spalpeen, is this porthrait meant for me?'

"''Tis your likeness, as I see it,' was the answer that he got,
An' the wrath of Misther Swift MacNeill then wax'd exceeding hot,
An' he cast the picther from him, an' he trod it on the ground,
An' he took an' danced an Irish jig the artist's form around.

"'Ye spalpeen,' thus again he spoke, 'ye most obnoxious fellow!
Ye see that I'm a lion, yet ye've made me a gorilla;
If your Saxon eyes are blinded to the truth of what I say,
Go and borrow for a moment the glasses of Tay Pay.

"'They will show ye that our seventy are Apollos one and all,
That we're most divinely lovely an' seraphically tall;
They will show ye we're all angels--though for divils I'll allow,
'Tis the black ones ye'll be seeing where the lost to Redmond bow.'

"Then Misther Swift MacNeill, just to lave his meaning clear,
Wid flowers of Irish eloquence filled Mr. Furniss' ear;
An' he also shook wid passion, an', moreover, shook his fist,
An' the Docther an' his blackthorn stood all ready to assist.

"Misther Furniss smiled serenely, an' the only word he spoke
Was to say it seemed that Misther Swift was slow to see a joke,
But for all his jokes an' blarney, things were looking like a fight,
When a minion of the Spayker was seen to be in sight.

"Then Apollo Swift MacNeill from his dignity got down,
An' he withered Misther Furniss wid a godlike parting frown,
An' he stalked along the Lobby wid his grand O'Tarquin stride,
An' the other Mimbers followed him, an' went the House inside.

"An' there they still are threading on the necks of Saxon slaves,
An' nightly wid their eloquence they're digging Saxon graves;
An' my counsel to the artist who their fatures would porthray,
Is to thry and see their beauty through the glasses of Tay Pay."

This manufactured "scene," coming as it did in the silly season, was made to serve instead of the Sea-Serpent, the Toad-in-the-Rock, the Shower of Frogs, and other familiar inventions for holiday reading. Unfortunately the poor Members of Parliament obliged to remain in St. Stephen's had to suffer far more than I did through the eccentricity of Mr. Swift MacNeill. Several of them complained to me that he lured them into the corridors and corners of the House, and then vigorously set to work to demonstrate practically how he assaulted me, or how he imagined he assaulted me, to the discomfiture and consternation of the poor M.P's.

I should like to explain why this "technical assault" on me was not made a matter of discussion. I did intend a friendly Member should have brought it before the Speaker, and in that way published the truth of the matter and exposed the stupid inventions of Burns & Co. With that object I had an interview with the Speaker, and he implored me not under any circumstances to have it brought before the House. He was already tired, at the end of a trying session, and did not want any personal questions discussed, which invariably led to protracted scenes. For that reason, and for that reason only, it was not mentioned in Parliament, notwithstanding it was really a much more serious affair than was imagined. It was a deliberately organised conspiracy. When I was leaving the Lobby, after my amusing interview with Mr. MacNeill, in which he told me that I was "technically assaulted," Chief Inspector Horsley took me down a private passage, and informed me that he had been looking for me, as he had discovered there was a conspiracy to attack me, and at that moment nine or ten Members from Ireland were in the passage downstairs, out of which I would have in the ordinary course gone through, lying in wait for me. So I left with him by another door.

In this I was not more to blame than other caricaturists, but I was more in evidence, and was selected to be "technically assaulted," so as to force me to bring an action, in which all papers, except those supporting the Irish Party, would have been attacked and discussed, and their influence if possible injured for purely political purposes. An aggrieved person, smarting under a gross injustice, does not "technically assault" the aggressor. Had Mr. McNeill tried it on with me, weak and ill as I was, I think I had enough power to oblige him; as it happened, I only saw the humour of the thing.

One of the most amusing sketches I received was this from Sir Frank Lockwood. Lockwood and I frequently exchanged caricatures, as shown by the clever sketches I introduce here and there in these pages. Sometimes he sent me some chaffing note written in a disguised hand, and disguised drawing; but the latter experiment, although it failed to deceive, certainly entertained me greatly. Here is a letter supposed to be from Lord Cross, a favourite subject of mine when he was in the Lower House. Seldom a week passed but I made his nose shorter and his upper lip longer, made his head stick out, and his spectacles glisten. Did he object? No, no! "Grand Cross" is a man of the world; nor was he ever a mere notoriety-seeking political adventurer. I once met him at dinner, and we chatted over my caricatures of him, and I recollect his saying, "A man is not worth anything if he is thin-skinned, and certainly not worth much if he cannot enjoy a joke at his own expense."

Sir Frank Lockwood whiled away the weary hours in Parliament to his own amusement and those around him, but he was not aware perhaps that what he did was seen from the Ladies' Gallery. The ladies got a birdseye view of his caricatures in progress. One in particular was the cause of much amusement, not only to the ladies, but to the Members. My lady informant related the incident to me thus: "I always watch Mr. Lockwood sketching, and I saw he had his eye on the burly figure of a friend of mine sitting on the Ministerial bench. Mr. Gladstone turned round to say something to him, and his quick eye detected Mr. Lockwood sketching. The artistic Q.C. handed the sketch (which I saw was a caricature of the late Lord Advocate) to Mr. Gladstone, who fairly doubled up with laughter, and handed it to those on either side of him. Eventually it was sent over to Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Balfour, and they thoroughly enjoyed the caricature of themselves, as did all their Tory friends. But _we_ had seen it first!" It may have been this sketch subsequently sent to me and redrawn in _Punch_.

I recall an incident which happened one evening when I was on watch in the Inner Lobby to find and sketch a newly-elected M.P., who, I heard, was about to make his maiden speech, and it was most important I should catch him. Just as I was going up to the Press Gallery, Sir Frank Lockwood came into the Lobby and offered to get me a seat under the Gallery where I could see the new M.P. to advantage. The new M.P. was "up," so Lockwood went into the House to fetch me the Sergeant's order. I waited impatiently for his return; a long time passed; still I waited. A smiling Member came out of the House, and I asked him if he had seen Lockwood. "Oh, rather," he replied, smiling still; "I've just been sitting by him, watching him make a capital caricature of a chap making his maiden speech." When the Member had finished his speech, Lockwood ran out, and cheeringly apologised to me for his absent-mindedness. "So tempting, you know, old chap, I couldn't resist sketching him!"

Sir Frank Lockwood was perhaps the most favourable modern specimen of the buoyant amateur. Possessing a big heart, kindly feeling, a brilliant wit, and a facile pen, he treated art as his playfellow and never as his master. And in the spirit in which his work was executed so must it be judged. The work of an amateur artist possessing a distinct vein of humour is, in my opinion, far more entertaining than that of the professional caricaturist, the former being absolutely spontaneous and untrammelled by the conscientiousness of subsequent publication, of correct draughtsmanship, made only from impressions of the moment, and not the effort (as in the case of many a professional humorist) of having to be funny to order.

An excellent example of the amateur at his best is to be found in the drawings of Sir Frank Lockwood. No one would resent less than Lockwood himself having the term "amateur" applied to his work; indeed, he would, I am sure, have felt proud to be classed in the same category as several of our most popular humorous artists.

Circumstances connected with a curious coincidence concerning a caricature (what alliteration!) are worth confirming.

One morning I was taking my usual horse exercise round the ride in the inner circle of Regent's Park, before that spot, once the quiet haunt of the horseman, became the noisy ring of the cyclist. At that time a few cycling beginners used the circle for practice, and their alarming performances were gradually depleting the number of equestrians. One of these novices came down the hill, having an arm round the neck of his instructor, and one leg on the pedal, the other in mid air. He was unable to steer the machine, and as I cantered up, the performer's hat, which had been over one eye, fell off, disclosing the features of Professor Bryce. The next moment the machine, its rider and his instructor, were "all of a heap" on the ride up which my horse was cantering. I had just time to jump my horse on to the path and thus save my own neck, and the life of the energetic Member of Parliament, who I noticed later in the day, when sitting in the Press Gallery, was on the front Opposition bench, next to Sir Frank Lockwood, quite unconcerned. I made a rough sketch of the incident of the morning, and sent it down to my brother Two Pins, Sir Frank, with a request that his friend Bryce should in future select some other spot to practise bicycling. This was handed to Lockwood just as he was leaving the House, strange to say, on his way home to dress for a dinner at Professor Bryce's. Lockwood mischievously placed the sketch in the pocket of his dress coat, and at the dinner led up to the subject of cycling, suggesting at the same time that his host ought to try it.

"Well, strange to say, Lockwood, I've been seriously thinking of it, but I don't know how one should begin."

"Don't you?" cried Lockwood from the other end of the table. "What do you say to this, nearly killing my friend Harry Furniss!" And my caricature was produced and handed down from guest to guest, to the chagrin of the host. That was Lockwood's version of the coincidence.

Suggestions for _Punch_ came to me from most unexpected quarters, but were rarely of any use. Lewis Carroll--like every one else--got excited over the Gladstonian crisis, and Sir William Harcourt's head to Lewis Carroll was much the same as Charles the First's to Mr. Dick in "David Copperfield," for I find in several letters references to Sir William.

"_Re_ Gladstone's head and its recent growth, couldn't you make a
picture of it for the 'Essence of Parliament'? I would call it 'Toby's
Dream of A.D. 1900,' and have Gladstone addressing the House, with his
enormous head supported by Harcourt on one side, and Parnell on the
other."

This suggestion is the only one I adopted. Strange to say, neither Gladstone, Parnell, nor Lewis Carroll lived to see 1900.

"Is that anecdote in the papers _true_, that some one has sent you a
pebble with an accidental (and not a 'doctored') likeness of Harcourt?
If so, let me suggest that your most _graceful_ course of action will be
to have it photographed, and to present prints of it to any authors
whose books you may at any time chance to illustrate!"

This is the "anecdote":

"Someone found on the seashore the other day a pebble moulded exactly on
the lines of Mr. Furniss' portrait of Sir William Harcourt."

Other notices were in verse. This from _Vanity Fair_ is the best:

"For Fame, 'tis said, Sir William craves,
And to some purpose he has sought her;
His face is fashioned by the waves:
When will his name be 'writ in water'?"

I lay under a charge of plagiarism. Nature had "invented" my Harcourt portrait, and had been at work upon it probably before I was born; the wild waves had by degrees moulded a shell into the familiar features, and when completed had left the sea-sculptured sketch high and dry on the coast. I now publish, with thanks, a photo-reproduction of the shell (not a pebble) as I received it: it is not in any way "doctored." It is a large, weather-beaten shell.

There is no doubt but that at one time Lewis Carroll studied _Punch_, for in one of his earliest letters to me he writes:

"To the best of my recollection, one of the first things that suggested
to me the wish to secure your help was a marvellously successful picture
in _Punch_ of a House of Lords entirely composed of Harcourts, where the
figures took all possible attitudes, and gave all possible views of the
face; yet each was a quite unmistakable Sir William Harcourt!"

Again he refers to _Punch_ (March, 1890):

"A wish has been expressed in our Common Room (Christ's Church, Oxford),
where we take in and bind _Punch_, that we could have 'keys' to the
portraits in the Bishop of Lincoln's Trial and the 'ciphers' in
Parliament" (a Parliamentary design of mine, "The House all Sixes and
Sevens"). "Will you confer that favour on our Club? If you would give me
them done roughly, I will procure copies of those two numbers, and
subscribe the names in small MS. print, and have the pages bound in to
face the pictures. The simplest way would be for you to put numbers on
the faces, and send a list of names numbered to correspond."

Yet a few years brought a change (October, 1894):

"No doubt it is by your direction that three numbers of your new
periodical have come to me. With many thanks for your kind thought, I
will beg you not to waste your bounties on so unfit a recipient, for I
have neither time nor taste for any such literature. I have much more
work yet to do than I am likely to have life to do it in--and my taste
for comic papers is _defunct_. We take in _Punch_ in our Common Room,
but I never look at it!"

Hardly a generous remark to make to a _Punch_ man who had illustrated two of his books, and considering that Sir John Tenniel had done so much to make the author's reputation, and _Punch_ had always been so friendly; but this is a bygone.

PUNCH AT PLAY.

Well, Sir John, the Grand Old Man of _Punch_, the evergreen, the ever-delightful Sir John, has earned a night's repose after all his long day of glorious work and good-fellowship. "A great artist and a great gentleman": truer words were never spoken. It seems but yesterday he and I took our rides together; but yesterday he and I and poor Milliken--three _Punch_ men in a boat--were "squaring up" at Cookham after a week's delightful boating holiday on the Thames.

"There sat three oarsmen under a tree,
Down, a-down, a-down--hey down!
They were as puzzled as puzzled could be,
With a down;
And one of them said to his mate,
'We've got these mems in a doose of a state,'
With a down derry, derry down!

"Oh, they were wild, these oarsmen three,
Down, a-down, a-down--hey down!
Especially one with the white puggree,
With a down;
For it's precious hard to divide by three
A sum on whose total you can't agree,
With a down derry, derry down!

"They bit their pencils and tore their hair,
Down, a-down, a-down--hey down!
But those blessed bills, they wouldn't come square,
With a down;
'Midst muddle and smudge it is hard to fix
If a six is a nine or a nine is a six,
With a down derry, derry down!

"A crumpled account from a pocket of flannel
Down, a-down, a-down--hey down!
With dirt in dabs, and the rain in a channel,
With a down,
Is worse to decipher than uniform text,
Oh, that is the verdict of oarsmen vext,
With a down derry, derry down!

"A man in a boat his ease will take,
Down, a-down, a-down--hey down!
But financial conscience at last will wake,
With a down;
Then Nemesis proddeth the prodigal soul
When he finds that the parts are much more than the whole,
With a down derry, derry down!

"Those oarsmen are having a deuce of a time,
Down, a-down, a-down--hey down!
The man in the puggree is ripe for crime,
With a down.
Now heaven send every boating man
For keeping accounts a more excellent plan,
With a down derry, derry down!"

So pencilled poet Milliken. "The man in the puggree" is Sir John,--ripe for many years to come, and when he has another banquet, may I be there to see.

_The Two Pins Club_ was a _Punch_ institution.

Original notice of

"THE TWO PINS CLUB.

"There are Coaching Clubs, Four-in-hand Clubs, Tandem Clubs, and
Sporting Clubs of all sorts, but there is no _Equestrian Club_.

"The object of the present proposed Club is to supply this want.

"The Members will meet on Sundays, and ride to some place within
easy reach of town: there lunch, spend a few hours, and return.

"Due notice will be given of each 'Meet,' and replies must be sent in to
the Secretary by Wednesday afternoon at latest. When it is considered
necessary, Luncheon will be ordered beforehand for the party, and those
who have neglected to reply by the time fixed, and who do not attend the
Meet, will be charged with their share of the Luncheon.

"There will be other Meets besides those on Sundays, which will be
arranged by the Members from time to time.

"The title of the Club is taken from the names of the two most celebrated
English Equestrians known to 'the road,' viz.:--

"'DICK TURPIN'

AND

"'JOHN GILPIN.'

"The Members of 'THE TWO PINS' will represent all the dash of the one
and all the respectability of the other.

"The original Members at present are:--

MR. F. C. BURNAND.
MR. JOHN TENNIEL.
MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE.
MR. HARRY FURNISS.
MR. R. LEHMANN.

"It is not proposed at first to exceed the number of twelve. The other
names down for invitation to become members are--

MR. FRANK LOCKWOOD, Q.C., M.P.
MR. JOHN HARE.[3]
SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q.C., M.P.

"We hope you will join. The eight Members can then settle a convenient
day for the first Meet, and inaugurate the TWO PINS CLUB.

[3] "N.B. No hounds."

The Two Pins Club was started in 1890, and flourished until its President, Lord Russell, was elevated to the Bench. My only claim for distinction in connection with it rests on the fact that I was the only member who, except when I was in mid-Atlantic on my return from the States, never missed a meet. Were the Club now a going concern, I would, of course, refrain from mentioning it, but as it is referred to in the "History of _Punch_" by Mr. Spielmann, and in "John Hare, Comedian," by Mr. Pemberton, I may be pardoned and also forgiven for repeating the one joke ever made public in connection with this remarkable Club.

One afternoon our cavalcade was approaching Weybridge, which had been the scene of the boyish pranks of one of our members. To the amusement of us all, this brother Two Pins, as reminiscences of the district were recalled to him by one object and another, grew terribly excited.

"Ah, my boys, there is the dear old oak tree under which I smoked my first cigarette! And there, where the new church stands, I shot my first snipe. Dear me, how all is altered! I wonder if old Sir Henry Tomkins still lives in the Lodge there, and what has become of the Rector's pretty daughter?" etc.

Sir Frank Lockwood, observing lettering on the side of a house, "General Stores," casually asked our excited reminiscent friend if he "knew a General Stores about these parts?"

"General Stores! Of course I do, but he was only a Captain when I lived here!"

When the members lunched at The Durdans our host and honorary member, Lord Rosebery, remarked that it was a Club of "one joke and one horse!" the fact being that we all drove over from Tadworth, Lord Russell's residence, where we were staying, with the exception of Lord Russell himself, who rode. We had, of course, each a horse: some of the members a great deal more than one, but we were careful to trot out one joke between us: "General Stores" became our general and only story.

The first public announcement respecting the Club appeared in the _Daily Telegraph_, the 4th of May, 1891:

"The T.P.C. held its first annual meeting at the 'Star and Garter Hotel' yesterday morning. There was a full attendance of members. Under the careful and conciliatory guidance of the President, Sir Charles Russell, supported mainly by Mr. F. C. Burnand, Mr. Frank Lockwood, Mr. Harry Furniss, Mr. Edward Lawson, Mr. Charles Mathews, Mr. John Hare, Mr. Linley Sambourne, and Mr. R. Lehmann (hon. sec.), the customary business was satisfactorily transacted, and the principal subjects for discussion were dealt with in a spirit of intelligent self-control. Mr. Arthur Russell was unanimously elected a member of the association, which in point of numbers is now complete."

But the object of the Club being carefully concealed, much mystery surrounds its name. Few were aware that it was merely a band of "Sontag-Reiters." Our hon. sec., being at the time prominent in politics, received congratulations from those who imagined the T.P.C. was a political association, and much wonderment was excited by the decidedly enigmatical appellation of the small and select society. Sir Edward Lawson showed marked ingenuity in retaining the mystery by his paragraphs in his paper. The first meet of our second season was the only one I missed during the years the Club existed:

"The first meeting of the T.P.C. for the season of 1892 took place yesterday at the 'Star and Garter Hotel,' under the presidency of Sir Charles Russell, who was assisted in the performance of his duties by Mr. Frank Lockwood, Mr. Linley Sambourne, Mr. Edward Lawson, and Mr C. W. Mathews. The arrangements for the season were completed, and a digest was made of the subjects which claimed the immediate consideration of the members. The President called attention to a delay which had occurred in the fulfilment of certain artistic duties which had been entrusted to Mr. Harry Furniss and Mr. Linley Sambourne, and which had been retarded in their accomplishment by Mr. Furniss' voyage to America. But it was understood that immediate attention would now be bestowed upon the work in hand; and the remainder of the business was of a routine character."

The "artistic duties" referred to, I have no recollection of, but I know that at our preliminary meeting, when all matters, artistic and otherwise, were discussed and arranged, the two following important resolutions were proposed, seconded, and carried unanimously:--

"That Mr. Rudolph Lehmann be elected Permanent Secretary, and that the
duty of sending out all notices convening the Meets of the T.P.C., as
well as all arrangements connected with the Club, be entrusted to him;
and that every notice of meeting be posted and prepaid by him eight
lunar, or at least three calendar, days before the date of each Meet;
and further, that records in a neat and clerkly style of each and every
Meet be faithfully kept by the said Secretary, and be at all times open
for the inspection of each and every member of the T.P.C."

"That Mr. Linley Sambourne shall provide at his own expense the
notepaper and envelopes required for the business of the Club, and shall
invent and draw a design, which design, also at his own expense, he
shall cause to be stamped or otherwise engraved on the said notepaper
and envelopes, and shall cause the said notepaper so stamped or
engraved to be forwarded to the Perpetual President, the Permanent
Secretary, and the other members, for use in connection only with the
business of the Club."

"It was further resolved that all maps and charts be kept at the
Secretary's Office, and in the event of any dispute, the Ordnance Map or
the Admiralty Chart shall be decisive."

But during the existence of the Club there never was any cause to refer to an Ordnance Map or Admiralty Chart. There never was a Secretary's Office, nor did Mr. Linley Sambourne either design or provide the notepaper or envelopes, nor are there any records in existence, either printed or written "in a neat and clerkly style," of the merry meetings of this unique Club. It ran its delightful and dangerous course, its wild career, unmarred by any dispute or accident. The last "meet" was to dine Lord Russell on his elevation to the Bench.

I shall never forget the first occasion on which I saw the late Lord Russell. It was in the old days when the Law Courts were in Westminster,--and I, in search of "character," strangely enough found myself wandering about the Divorce Court, where so many characters are lost. It was a _cause célèbre_,--the divorce suit of a most distinguished Presbyterian cleric who charged his wife, the co-respondent being the stable-boy. Russell (then plain Mr.) was for the clergyman, and when I entered the crowded court, he was in the midst of his appeal to the jury, working himself up to a pitch of eloquence, appealing to all to look upon the saintly figure of the man of prayer (the plaintiff, who was playing the part by kneeling and clasping his hands), and asking the jury to scorn all idea of his client having any desire to free himself of his wife so as to marry his pretty governess, or cousin, or whomever it was suggested he most particularly admired. Russell had arrived at quoting Scripture,--he was at his best, austere, eloquent, persuasive, an orator, a gentleman, a great advocate, and as sanctimonious as his kneeling client.

He was interrupted by someone handing him a telegram. As he opened it he said, waving it towards his client, "This may be a message from Heaven to that saint,--ah, gentlemen of the jury, the words so pure--so--so----" (he reads the telegram).

"D----! D----! D----!" He crushed the telegram in his hand, and with an angry gesture threw it away. Although his words were drowned by the "laughter in Court," his gestures and face showed his chagrin and disgust. The Grand National had been run half-an-hour before.

Years afterwards, on his own lawn at Tadworth, I told him of this incident, and asked him what the contents of that telegram were. He declared I was wrong, such an incident never occurred in his career. I convinced him I was right--it was the first time I saw him, and every detail was vividly impressed upon my memory. After dinner he came to me and said, "Furniss, I have been thinking over that incident. You are quite right--it has all come back to me. I lost my temper, I recollect, because I had wired to my boy over there to make a bet for me on an outsider at a long price; when at lunch, I heard the horse had won. I was delighted, and therefore at my best when I addressed the jury. The telegram was from my boy to say that he forgot to put the money on!"

Riding has caused my appearance in a Police Court, but not as a member of the Two Pins Club. In October, 1895, I was returning from my usual ride before breakfast, accompanied by my little daughter; we turned into the terrace in which we live, and our horses cantered up the hill about 120 yards. As we were dismounting, a Police Inspector passed, addressing me by name, and in a most offensive tone declared that he would summon me, as I had been cautioned before for furious riding. This remark was so absolutely untrue that I met the summons, and the Inspector in the Court made three distinct statements on oath: That I spurred my horse (when cross-examined by me, he gave a minute description of my spurs); that I charged up the hill 250 yards at the rate of sixteen miles an hour; and that I had been cautioned before for the same thing. Now, I have never been cautioned in my life; the distance I went up the hill is 120 yards, and no horse could get up any pace in that distance; and I do not wear spurs, although two constables swore I did.

The magistrate, face to face with these three facts, looked the picture of misery. It was evident to him, as it must be evident to every fair-minded man, that the police were in the wrong. And when the magistrate was thinking out this dilemma, I made a fatal mistake. I gave my reason for appearing as a sacrifice on my part to show the magistrate the sort of evidence upon which poor cabmen and others are fined and made to suffer. The magistrate, Mr. Plowden, waxed very wroth, and as he could not punish me, and would not reprimand the police, I was asked to pay the costs of the summons, which was withdrawn. The late Mr. Montagu Williams, who sat in the Marylebone Police Court, the court in which I was charged with furious riding, gave it as his private opinion that the longer a policeman was in the service the less he could rely upon his word.

This case led to all sorts of trouble. I was assailed by people in the street, strangers to me, for "riding over children." Letters came from all sorts of societies--Cruelty to Animals, and other excellent institutions. I found people measuring the terrace; others riding up it to see if it were possible to get the pace (which it is not), but few knew the truth. The constable when I left the court remarked to me, "I'll tache ye to caricature Oirishmen in Parleymint!" However, I was repaid by the humour the incident gave rise to in the imagination of my brother workers on the Press. Mr. F. C. Gould made this capital sketch, and others portrayed my crime in verse. The following was written to me by one of London's most celebrated editors, and has never been published before:

"H. Furniss was an artist gent
Of credit and renown,
Who'd ride a horse up Primrose Hill
With any man in town.

"The morn was fine as morn could be
Upon last Thursday week,
And, like the early morn, H. F.
Was up before the beak.

"(Full little dreamed that worthy cit,
Some dozen mornings hence
He would be 'up before the beak'
In quite another sense.)

"Upon two tits of pranksome mood,
The gallant Lika Joko
And Likajokalina rode,
'Desipere in loco.'

"'Cantare pares' rode the pair,
Ad equitatum nati,'
But to a bobby's summons not
'Respondere parati.'

"So 'appy rode the blithesome pair,
They scoured the hill and plain,
And warming with their morning's work,
Rode hotly home again.

"But by the slope of Primrose Hill
The rude Inspector Ross
Beheld H. Furniss canter up
Upon his foaming hoss.

"'Look 'ere, young man,' says he to him,
'There are some children dear
That by the ridin' of you folk
Do go in bod'ly fear.

"'Your hasting steed pull up, I say!
S'welp me, draw your rein!
The innocents abroad, young man,
Are frightened by you twain.

"'Look at yer smokin' job 'oss 'ere--
I seen you job 'is flank!
'E's well nigh done--tyke 'im away,
And back upon the rank.'

"H. Furniss fixed him with his eye;
His brow was awful cross;
He Kyrled his lip contemptuous-like
At this rude man of Ross.

"'The spirit of my gallant cob,
Ruffian, you shall not squelch;
I ride nor Scotch nor Irish hot,
But Furniss-heated Welsh.

"'Mine and my daughter's gentle pace
Could not affright a foundling;
Be off, and peep down areas, or
Move on some harmless groundling!'

"The Inspector glared: 'Come, Mr. F.,
We can't stand this no longer;
I summons you to Marylebone'--
(He muttered something stronger).

* * * * *

"Good Mr. Plowden heard the charge,
As two policemen swore it;
Then heard H. Furniss' defence,
And sagely pondered o'er it.

"'The Inspector swears you galloped up;
You swear you merely trotted:
My own opinion in this case
Is, as usual, Gordian-knotted.

"'Now Gordian knots were tied to be
By magistrates divided;
We cut them--and the severed ends
Do much as once the tied did.

"'In this case, add the paces up,
And then divide by two:
A canter is the quotient;
I think that that should do.

"'A sound decision that will please
Both parties this I trust is;
It is a fine distinction, but
Avoids the fires of justice.

"'You, Mr. Furniss, must disburse
Two bob costs to my till,
And promise me to try no more
Primrose babes to kill.

"'And all in Court, take warning by
The furious Canterer's fate,
And go not up the Primrose path
At such an awful rate.

"'But if your sluggish livers you
Must vigorously shake,
"Vigor's Horse Exercise at Home"
(Vide Prospectus) take.'"

As a matter of fact, the magistrate did not look at the charge-sheet, or know me, or catch my name, or he might have made his usual joke at my expense in another way.

Mr. Burnand and I rode a great deal together. Avoiding the Row, my editor preferred to ride to Hampstead, Harrow, or Mill Hill, calling for me on the way. Once, when I could not ride, he wrote: "Very sorry to hear of your being laid up with a cold; it shows what even the Wisest and Best amongst us are liable to. The idea is monstrous of a _Cold Furniss_. A _coal'd_ furniss is satisfactory. Don't take too much out of yourself with riding. 'He speaks to thee who hath not got a horse'--Shakespeare." Then follows later a specimen of his irrepressible good humour:

_22 Nov._

"Alas and alack!
I've got a hack,
But the weather's been such,
I've not got on his back.

"I got no jog
Because of the fog,
And up to twelve,
In breeches and boots,
Which I had to shelve
And recover my foots.
I lunched at the 'G'
(So there was, you see,
One _Gee_ for me).

"Then I came back
And wrote some play
But oh, good lack!
No riding to-day.
If foggy here,
At Ramsgate 'twas clear.