n those happy, hungry, hard-working days,
when dinner was not always a vested interest, Mr. du Maurier seemed
already tinged with the daintier tastes that were destined to lead his
pencil to the delineation of these same "bloated" classes; and even in
those hard times he could always boast a dress-suit.

So at the age of twenty-six--the same as that at which Charles Keene
made his debut in _Punch_--he sent in an occasional contribution that
was far more in Leech's manner than in what came to be his own.

Art has a way, figuratively speaking, of flourishing on an empty
stomach, and Mr. du Maurier made rapid progress on the training. Keene's
acquaintance and genial friendship enslaved at once his artistic
methods, as well as his artistic adoration. It was not that he admired
Leech less, but that he appreciated Keene more; and when the former
died, to the sorrow and consternation of the Staff, Mr. du Maurier was
appointed to his seat at the Table. He obeyed the summons on the first
Wednesday that followed Leech's death, and carved his monogram on the
board between those of the bosom friends, Thackeray and Leech. Mark
Lemon, with characteristic shrewdness, soon discovered in what direction
lay the talent and perhaps the _penchant_ of the artist, and told him
not to try to be "too funny," but to do the graceful side of things, and
to be "the romantic tenor in Mr. Punch's opera bouffe company," while
Keene was to do the comic songs. The little social dramas of the day,
the drawing-rooms of Belgravia, and the nurseries of Mayfair--those were
his preserves, from which he could get as much game as he chose,
humorous if he liked, but graceful withal.

But Mr. du Maurier is emphatically not what is commonly understood by "a
funny man," for all his subtlety and love of humour; he is a combination
of the artistic, with a distinct and clear sense of beauty, and of the
scientific, with speculations and theories of race and heredity--who
would as lief draw East-End types for the sake of their "character," and
would look at a queer face more for the interest that is in it than for
its comicality. If Mr. du Maurier's sense of beauty is strong, so is his
appreciation of ugliness; and if you take down any of the volumes of
_Punch_--that shine in their shelves like the teeth in the great
laughing mouth of Humour itself--you will find no faces or forms more
hideous or grotesque than those which the artist has chosen to put
there.

But if