so that, should he in his homeward
course be tempted to stray into the path of undue conviviality, he might
sooner or later be safely delivered at his destination. Although the
statement is in a measure confirmed in the memoirs of Hodder and of
Blanchard Jerrold himself, one cannot help being struck at the conflict
between it and the story of Jerrold's reply to the drunken young sparks
who met him in the street at midnight, and asked him the way to the
entertainment known as "Judge and Jury"--"Straight on, straight on as
you are going, young gentlemen--you can't miss them!" He was himself
greatly pleased with his milder witticisms, and, it is said, chuckled
complacently at the neatness of his conceit when toasting Mr. Punch, at
one of the Wednesday Dinners, in which he declared that "he would never
require spirit while he had such good Lemon-aid." He loved the paper as
few others loved it, and very, very rarely missed the weekly
gathering--attending it, indeed, up to within a week or so of his death.

Not less scrupulous in his attendance was Gilbert Abbott a Beckett, who,
when residing at holiday-times at Boulogne, would regularly come up to
town for their Cabinet Council; and if ill-chance unavoidably prevented
his wished-for presence, he would write--after the custom adopted by
many of his colleagues--a full explanation and apology. But the
necessity very seldom arose. True son of his father, Gilbert a Beckett
was equally faithful to the Table, and in spite of the paralysis of the
legs from which he suffered (and for which he was for a time duly
chaffed by the advice of Percival Leigh, lest there might be hysteria
about the disease) he attended the Wednesday gatherings with what
regularity he could up to within a fortnight before he died. Thackeray,
too, for many years after he ceased writing for _Punch_ would weekly
join the Staff, and always received a cordial and affectionate welcome.
The gentle Leech--who, according to Shirley Brooks, attended the Dinner
for more than twenty years without uttering an unkind or an angry
word--was at the Table within a few days of his death, but, in Brooks's
words, "scarcely seemed to understand what was going on." And yet
another member of the Old Guard, who stood by his post to the end, was
"The Professor," Percival Leigh, whose sense of wit was dulled with age,
but whose mind was otherwise as bright as ever. But at the Dinners the
genial, courteous old gentleman was listened to,