. Bradbury. The
trophy-frame of specimen proofs of some of the finest of Swain's cuts of
the artistic Staff's best work, gathered together for show in one of the
great exhibitions, has been removed to make room for photographs of
Gilbert a Beckett, "Ponny" (Horace) Mayhew, Charles Keene, Tom Taylor,
Percival Leigh, Charles H. Bennett, R. F. Sketchley, John Henry Agnew,
Thomas Agnew and William Bradbury, Mr. Fred Evans and Sir William Agnew;
while photographic groups of the Staff and a fine autotype of Thackeray
complete the wall decoration of one of the most interesting apartments
in London City.

[Illustration: JOHN LEECH'S INITIALS AND CYPHER.]

[Illustration: W. M. THACKERAY'S MONOGRAM]

And in the corner, on the locker farthest from the street, besides a
little _papier-mache_ figure of a Japanese Punch--sent by an admirer in
the Land of the Rising Sun--and a group charmingly modelled from Sir
John Tenniel's beautiful cartoon of "Peace and the New Year," stands the
statue of the Great Hunchback himself, which in a fit of enthusiasm a
young German sculptor, named Adolph Fleischmann, wrought and presented
to the object of his admiration. It is a work of no little grotesqueness
and ingenuity (well modelled and coloured, and fitted with springs that
permit of the working of arms and eyes and head), which, endowed with a
white favour, has played its part in the decoration of the publishing
office on the occasion of certain royal weddings and public rejoicing,
and during the blocking of Fleet Street has been utilised in the
direction of comic self-advertisement.

[Illustration: HORACE MAYHEW'S INITIALS.]

Then there is a real "Royal Patent" appropriately framed, "hereby
appointing Master Punch unto the Place and Quality of Joke Maker
Extraordinary to her Majesty," duly signed and sealed by the Lord
Chamberlain, and countersigned "J. A. N. D. Martin." It is undoubtedly a
genuine certificate--up to a point; but how it was obtained, and how
_Punch's_ name came to be filled in, remains to this day a mystery. Such
is the room, with its pleasant decoration of red and black and gold,
with its large windows and its sunlight gaselier; but, take it for all
in all, it is about as unlike Mr. Sambourne's classic representation of
the Roman atrium in his Jubilee drawing as well could be imagined.

[Illustration: TOM TAYLOR'S INITIALS.]

And the Table itself--_the_ Table--the famous board of which we all have
heard, yet none, or