d as if I had swallowed a little baby." It was many years ago since
we gathered about him on that occasion, but, if my memory serves me, we
had what might be called _a pleasant evening_. Indeed, I remember much
hilarity, and sounds as of men laughing and singing far into midnight. I
could not deny, if called upon to testify in court, that we had a _good
time_ on that frosty November evening.

We had many happy days and nights together both in England and America,
but I remember none happier than that evening we passed with him when
the Punch people came to dine at his own table with the silver statuette
of Mr. Punch in full dress looking down upon the hospitable board from
the head of the table. This silver figure always stood in a conspicuous
place when Tom Taylor, Mark Lemon, Shirley Brooks, and the rest of his
jolly companions and life-long cronies were gathered together. If I were
to say here that there were any dull moments on _that_ occasion, I
should not expect to be strictly believed.

Thackeray's playfulness was a marked peculiarity; a great deal of the
time he seemed like a school-boy, just released from his task. In the
midst of the most serious topic under discussion he was fond of asking
permission to sing a comic song, or he would beg to be allowed to
enliven the occasion by the instant introduction of a brief
double-shuffle. Barry Cornwall told me that when he and Charles Lamb
were once making up a dinner-party together, Charles asked him not to
invite a certain lugubrious friend of theirs. "Because," said Lamb, "he
would cast a damper even over a funeral." I have often contrasted the
habitual qualities of that gloomy friend of theirs with the astounding
spirits of both Thackeray and Dickens. They always seemed to me to be
standing in the sunshine, and to be constantly warning other people out
of cloudland. During Thackeray's first visit to America his jollity knew
no bounds, and it became necessary often to repress him when he was
walking in the street. I well remember his uproarious shouting and
dancing when he was told that the tickets to his first course of
readings were all sold, and when we rode together from his hotel to the
lecture-hall he insisted on thrusting both his long legs out of the
carriage window, in deference, as he said, to his magnanimous
ticket-holders. An instance of his procrastination occurred the evening
of his first public appearance in America. His lecture was advertised to
ta