e your friends to look out for you....
You've noticed I only do one a week now, as a rule. I send you an
idea you might work out. Wouldn't you make it a meet (in
background), and the speakers mounted?

"'Think I must part with him.' SHE: 'What! all at once, wholesale?
Wouldn't it be better to sell him retail on little skewers?' I'll
look out and send you anything in your line I hear of."

This joke of Keene's was duly worked out by Mr. Corbould, and was
produced Nov. 22, 1884 (p. 249, Vol. LXXXVII). Up to this time the
draughtsman had worked under three Editors, to whom, as was the
practice, he would send in slight sketches to "legends," and work out
those which were accepted, the selection being made in due course, with
a bit of criticism to take the vanity out of him, thus: "_Very good
subject._ The man is far too big for the horse, which is a 15.3 if he's
an inch. This was generally Leech's mistake; so you err in remarkably
good company. Why 'Hunting Puzzle'? It's not a puzzle."

Apart from a couple of sketches by Mrs. Field and one by Mr. Graham, the
year 1872 brought no contributor but Randolph Caldecott. The
half-a-dozen sketches together comprising his "Seaside Drama" (p. 120,
Vol. LXI.) contains no hint of that peculiar style, individual humour,
and perfect suggestion, which he was to make his own. His drawings were
published in 1872, 1873, and 1875, and then again in 1879, 1880, 1882,
and 1883--eighteen drawings in all; but it was not until 1879 that
Caldecott showed any of his later freshness and humorous exaggeration.
It was in 1870, his biographer asserts, that his drawings were shown to
Shirley Brooks and Mark Lemon:--

"Mr. Clough thus records the incident: Bearing an introductory
letter, he went up to London on a flying visit, carrying with him a
sketch on wood and a small book of drawings of 'The Fancies of a
Wedding.' He was well received. The sketch was accepted, and with
many compliments the book of drawings was detained. 'From that day
to this,' said Mr. Caldecott, 'I have not seen either sketch or
book.' Some time after, on meeting Mark Lemon, the incident was
recalled, when the burly, jovial Editor replied, 'My dear fellow, I
am vagabondising to-day, not _Punching_.' I don't think Mr.
Caldecott rightly appreciated the joke."[66]

Caldecott had had some practice in humorous drawing, having drawn three
years before f