head, hand, and
foot. When the Examiners counted the toes on the foot Sala had drawn,
they found six, so Sala didn't get in, don't you know!" Now, as other
journalists had quoted Sala against me, and a Nottingham paper attacked
me in a long and rather vulgar and offensive leader, I, finding myself
shortly afterwards the guest of the Literary Club in Nottingham, seized
the opportunity to reply. I regretted--though I supposed it was
flattering to me--to find that quite recently, although I had been
treated for many years with the greatest kindness in the Press, I had
been rather attacked. "I was proud," I said, "to find that the first
person to attack me in the Press was the greatest journalist the Press
possessed--Mr. George Augustus Sala." What I really said after this I
print side by side with what I was reported to have said:

"WHAT I SAID.

"I have not the pleasure of Mr. Sala's personal acquaintance, but no one
has a greater admiration than I have for that great man in literature.
Mr. Sala began life as an artist; not only so, but he began in that walk
of art which I pursue, like another great man of the pen had done before
him, for, of course, you all know the story of Thackeray going to
Dickens and offering to illustrate his books. Dickens declined
Thackeray's offer, and it is generally believed that that refusal so
annoyed Thackeray that he became a writer and a rival to Dickens. It was
a very good thing for him and for literature that Dickens gave him the
refusal he did. Now, Mr. Sala, as I said, also began life as an artist,
and I am informed that when an applicant for the Royal Academy he had to
send in for examination the usual chalk drawings of a head, a hand, and
a foot. The Examiners, however, discovered that Sala had drawn six toes
on the foot. He was rejected, and no doubt this caused him, like
Thackeray, to forsake the pencil for the pen, and he is now Art Critic
of the _Daily Telegraph_.

"In 1851 Mr. Sala painted the pictures upon the walls of an eating
saloon, and that probably had given him the taste for cooking which he
had evinced ever since."

"HOW I WAS REPORTED.

"He (Mr. Furniss) had not the pleasure of Mr. Sala's personal
acquaintance, but no one had a greater admiration for him than he had as
being a great man in literature. Mr. Sala began life as an artist, and
not only so, but he began in that walk of life whic