s: 'My good man,
_that_ isn't the way to treat your horse! You should _poke it in his
eye_--poke it in his eye, man!' Mark Lemon returned it as, he said, 'the
enclosed is rather too painful for _Punch_.' Encouraged by this repulse,
I sent in another joke and drawing, which were accepted. A small parcel
arrived shortly afterwards containing a '_block_' of wood. As I had
never seen one before, and had no notion whatever as to the process of
wood engraving, I didn't know what it was, or for what use. At the back,
on its rough ribbed surface, was a mystic inscription which I
interpreted into 'C. Bramitsi Struss,' but which a friend informed me
was intended for '6, Bouverie Street,' and he showed me how to set to
work. And so I did the drawing and some dozen others.... But I rather
fancy I shine with more than usual brilliancy in religious
periodicals--especially when the articles I have to illustrate are
written by imbecile women or ministers of the Gospel--I find it so
congenial and instructive." In three years Mr. Barnard was seen but
fifteen times in all. Twenty years later, in 1884, he made a last
appearance in a drawing which did not show him at his best (p. 303, Vol.
LXXXIV.). This was entitled "Early Prejudice," in which a child,
referring to the baby, suddenly exclaims, "Oh, mamma! when baby begins
to talk, what a dreadful thing if we find out _he's an Irishman_!"--a
joke, by the way, which in its main point was anticipated by Mr. du
Maurier in 1876, in his drawing called "Waiting for the Verdict." Lastly
there was a sketch called "Evening at Earls," which was sent in and
engraved, but not used; and since that day Mr. Barnard abstained from
further contribution.

In this same year a young lady named Miss Mansel (now Mrs. Bull) sent in
a drawing of an incident which occurred at her uncle's place at Anglesey
in Hampshire--the initials "R. M." on the buckets being those of Colonel
Mansel. "My eyes!" says Cooper the groom, in effect, to a gentleman who
has watched a lady dismount from her over-ridden animal; "to them ladies
a 'oss is a 'oss, and he must go!" Leech slightly re-touched the
drawing, adding pigeons in the foreground, and so forth, but, of course,
did not add his initials. Curiously enough, this block was included
among that artist's "Pictures of Life and Character" (p. 52, Series
IV.). "I remember I was very proud," writes the lady, "a few days after
the drawing appeared, at hearing some officers in High St