the counter, comes down upon him of the apron with the crusher,
"Oh, mother's sent back this piece o' cheese, 'cause father says if
he wants any bait when he's goin' a fishin', he can dig 'em up in our
garden!"

Are _you_ a fisherman, reader? Then will you feel your angling as well
as your artistic heart warmed by No. 75 ("_The Old Adam_") and No.
6 ("_Wet and Dry_"), the former especially! What water, what Scotch
boys, _what_ a "prencipled" (but piscatorial) "Meenister"! Don't _you_
feel your elbow twitch? Don't _you_ want to snatch the rod from SANDY
McDOUGAL's hand, and land that "fush" yourself, Sawbath or no Sawbath?

But, bless us, one wants to describe, and praise, and _purchase_
them all! A KEENE drawing, almost _any_ KEENE drawing, is "a thing of
beauty and a joy for ever" to everyone who has an eye for admirable
art and adorable drollery. And good as is the _fun_ of these drawings,
the graphic force, and breadth, and delicacy, and freshness,
and buoyancy, and breeziness, and masterly ease, and miraculous
open-airiness, and general delightfulness of them, are yet more marked
and marvellous. Time would fail to tell a tithe of their merits. An
essay might be penned on any one of them--but fate forbid it _should_
be, unless a sort of artistic CHARLES LAMB could take the task in
hand. Better far go again to New Bond Street and pass another happy
hour or two with the ruddy rustics and 'cute cockneys, the Scotch
elders and Anglican curates, the stodgy "Old Gents" and broad-backed,
bunchy middle-class matrons, the paunchy port-swigging-buffers,
and hungry but alert street-boys, the stertorous cabbies, and
chatty 'bus-drivers, the "festive" diners-out and wary waiters, the
Volunteers and _vauriens_, the Artists and 'Arries, the policemen
and sportsmen, amidst the incomparable street scenes, and the equally
inimitable lanes, coppices, turnip-fields and stubbles, green glades
and snowbound country roads of wonderful, ever-delightful, and--for
his comrades and the Public alike--all-too-soon-departed CHARLES
KEENE!

Nothing really worthy of his astonishing life-work, of even that part
of it exhibited here, _could_ be written within brief compass, even
by the most appreciative, admiring, and art-loving of his sorrowing
friends or colleagues. Let the British Public go to New Bond Street,
and see for itself, in the very hand-work of this great artist, what
he made manifest during so many years in the pages of _Punch_, name