teen years of age when he hurried
out of Euston Station one morning and stood for a moment thinking--for
he did not know a soul in the Metropolis. But he soon found an
opportunity.

"My first work was on _London Society_, for Florence Marryat," he said;
"then for the _Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News_. The _Illustrated
London News_ employed me. I did such things as the Boat Race, Eton and
Harrow cricket match, and similar subjects--all from a humorous point of
view. I have had as many as three full pages in one number. Then came
that terrible distress in the mining districts. I was married that year.
I was sent away to "do" the Black Country, and well remember eating the
first Christmas dinner of my married life alone in a Sheffield hotel.

[Illustration: MR. FURNISS ON "RHODA."

_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]

"Those sketches were never published. They were too terribly real. The
people dying in rooms with scarcely a stick of furniture, the children
opening the cupboards and showing them bare, appealed to me, and my
pencil refused to depict anything else. It was the same kind of thing
that was afterwards made notorious by Sims and Barnard in "How the Poor
Live." I came back and was selected to do some electioneering work for
the same paper. This necessitated the putting off of a little dinner
party to some friends, and I wired one of the invited to that effect.
When I was starting, imagine my surprise to meet a _Graphic_ artist on
the platform, and to hear that my friend had unwisely given away the
contents of my telegram! However, we chummed up. He stayed with
friends--I at an hotel. I sat up all that night working after attending
the meetings. At four o'clock I heard a knock at the door. A journalist.
I was just about to put into my picture the large figures. I made him
very much at home, and told him I would give him any information I knew
as to the previous night's proceedings if he would act as my model. He
did. We worked on till breakfast time, and we sat down together. I sent
off my page--it was in a week before the _Graphic_! It was a good
return. I had started on the Tuesday, got home on the Thursday, and
never had my boots off the whole time! I'd rather keep my boots on for a
week than disappoint an editor."

_Punch!_

I asked Mr. Furniss if Tom Taylor helped him to any considerable extent.
Oh! dear, no. Tom Taylor wrote a terrible fist, spattered the page all
over with ink, and invariably re