why I should feel hurt at your
changing the old rates of payment made to me--that I am not a man who
quarrels about a guinea or two except as a point of honour; _and_ that
when I could have had a much larger sum than that wh. you gave me for my
last novel--I preferred to remain with old friends, who had acted
honourably and kindly by me.

"I reproach myself with having written 1/2 a line regarding my old
'Punch' Companions--which was perfectly true, wh. I have often said--but
which I ought not to have written. No other wrong that I know of have I
done. And I think it is now about time that my old friends and
publishers should set me right.

"Yours very faithfully, dear Evans,

"W. M. THACKERAY.

"F. M. Evans, Esq."

[Illustration: THACKERAY IN HIS STUDY. (_From Portion of a Painting by
F. M. Ward, R.A., in the Possession of Richard Hurst, Esq._)]

Yet, though he resigned, he would still from time to time attend the
Dinners, at which he was always made welcome by the publishers and his
late colleagues. When, during this period, he was pleading for
assistance for the family of one of the Staff who had passed away, he
took pleasure in admitting that--"It is through my connection with
_Punch_ that I owe the good chances that have lately befallen me, and
have had so many kind offers of help in my own days of trouble that I
would thankfully aid a friend whom death has called away." So, although
he was no longer to be identified with the paper, Thackeray--"the great
Thackeray" he had become--was bound to it and to several members of the
Staff by ties of intimate affection, and his sudden death came with
stunning force upon them all. To Leech it was as his own death-knell;
and when he, Mark Lemon, Shirley Brooks, Tom Taylor, Horace Mayhew,
"Jacob Omnium," and John Tenniel stood round his grave, they felt, I
have been told, as if the glory of _Punch_ had been irremediably dimmed.
No verses ever penned by _Punch's_ poets to the memory of one of their
dead brethren ever breathed more love or more beauty of thought than
those in which Thackeray was mourned, and defended against the charge of
cynicism--" ... a brave, true, honest gentleman, whom no pen but his own
could depict as those who knew him could desire":--

"He was a cynic: By his life all wrought
Of generous acts, mild words, and gentle ways;
His heart wide open to all kindly thought,