t a timely bribe had
left him to mix with his friends for the rest of the day and to eat his
dinner with hands firmly secured in his manacles!

It is said that Dickens held aloof from _Punch_ on account of
Thackeray's success in it. If so, the jealousy must have been all on
Dickens' side; for Thackeray's well-known exclamation, when he hurried
into the _Punch_ office and slapped down before Lemon the latest number
of "Dombey and Son" containing Paul Dombey's death, "It's stupendous!
unsurpassed! There's no writing against such power as this!" was that of
a generous and magnanimous man. Bryan Proctor ("Barry Cornwall"),
writing to E. Fitzgerald in 1870, said, "I saw a good deal of Thackeray
until his death.... I did not observe much jealousy in Thackeray towards
Dickens, nor _vice versa_. They travelled pretty comfortably on their
dusty road together. Each had a quantity of good-nature, and each could
afford to be liberal to the other." The probable explanation is that
Dickens simply did not care to interrupt his triumphant career of
novelist in order to write occasional articles in a paper in which
anonymity was the rule and rejection so painfully possible.

Once, however, by the hand of Leech, Dickens made an appearance in
_Punch_, and, curiously enough, only once. This was in the drawing of
the awful appearance of a "wopps" at a picnic (p. 76, Vol. XVII.), where
the novelist appears as the handsome, but not very striking, youth
attendant on the young lady who is overcome at the distressing
situation. It must be admitted that the portrait is hardly recognisable.

But a serious quarrel broke out between Dickens and the _Punch_ men,
publishers and Editor alike--a quarrel wholly on Dickens's side. So
great had been his intimacy and his influence that he could cause the
insertion of a cartoon and even bring about the alteration of the Dinner
day. But now, on the unhappy differences between himself and his wife,
trouble arose between old friends. Mark Lemon had naturally leaned
towards the wife, from chivalry and sense of right, and the publishers
preferred to take no share in a quarrel in which they certainly had no
concern. On May 28, 1859, the whole of the back page of _Punch_ was
given to an advertisement of "Once a Week," which was to follow
"Household Words," and to an explanation of the position of affairs
between "Mr. Charles Dickens and his late Publishers." The following
paragraphs are all that it is needful to