. He always had a keen eye for the main chance, and never
neglected an opportunity for self-advertisement. Jerrold and Thackeray
detested him, though only Jerrold showed this openly--which he
occasionally did to Smith's face, in the most offensive manner. Albert
Smith retained his position on _Punch_ for some time after Jerrold's
animosity had declared itself--first, because his copy was always
certain; and secondly, because he and Leech were great friends, and
Leech was then a power--though not in the same degree as Jerrold, who
was almost absolute." These strictures are repeated in Vizetelly's
autobiography. Smith's "Physiologies," he says, which were some of them
enlarged from the _Punch_ sketches, brought him great popular favour, in
spite of their slight intrinsic worth. Thackeray was invited by
Vizetelly to produce similar sketches at a hundred pounds apiece--which
was double the amount he was then receiving for the monthly parts of
"Vanity Fair;" but he declined to do anything "in the Albert Smith
line," and he similarly refused to write for "Gavarni in London," of
which Smith was editor. "Pigmy as Jerrold physically was, Albert Smith
quailed before him;" for Jerrold's stinging attacks and repartees were
merciless. So Smith bought a toy-whip, which he playfully produced to
his friends with the explanation that he intended to apply it to "Master
Jerrold;" but he was never known to bring it out in his tormentor's
presence. Jerrold's "skull" witticism has already been recorded; and of
the same kind was his loud enquiry over the _Punch_ dinner-table--when
Smith's obtrusive foible of calling his acquaintances by their
abbreviated Christian names became intolerable--"I say, Leech, how long
is it necessary for a man to know you before he can call you 'Jack'?"
When Jerrold first saw Smith's initials, he had said that he believed
they were "only two-thirds of the truth"--and he continued to act upon
the assumption until Smith left _Punch_ and had become a successful
"Entertainer." Then a truce was called, for his Mont Blanc ascent and
the "Entertainment" he made out of it (of which Leech himself said,
"It's only bad John Parry") had made of Smith one of the lions of the
day, and of his St. Bernard, which had accompanied him, the most petted
beast in the metropolis. But to the end he remained, generally speaking,
the best-abused humorist of his day. He did not even succeed in escaping
the quiet scorn of his occasional compan