casional cartoonist
(Vols. III., IV., and V.); so that he was the more surprised at being
roughly--and, as he proved, unjustly--accused of being late with a
block. Other unpleasantnesses, which seemed to him gratuitous, suggested
the idea that he might not be wanted on _Punch_. He put the point
blankly, and was reassured. Still, the quantity of work sent him
diminished; and as nothing came by Christmas, Hine accepted the offer of
Christmas-work by the publisher of "The Great Gun"--for which, by the
way, he never received payment. Then there suddenly arrived a mass of
blocks from _Punch_; but they were returned with the message that, not
hearing from his former proprietors, he had made other arrangements. And
that was the end of his connection. Later on he worked for "Joe Miller
the Younger," "Mephystopheles," and "The Man in the Moon," and used his
pencil, in the true Spirit of a genuine sportsman, in pointing his
well-barbed jokes against his old paper with as much enthusiasm as he
had before given to its service. On page 153 of the second volume of
_Punch_ may be seen a little cut entitled "Choice Spirits in
Bond"--being the portraits of himself and the lanky William Newman in
the dock of a police-court. Although fifty-four years had passed, the
strong resemblance of the little likeness could still be recognised by
those who knew the artist in the last few months of his life.

After the collapse of "The Man in the Moon" Hine dropped out of comic
draughtsmanship. By this time, indeed, he was tired of the work, for he
had begun to think in jokes, to turn every thought to ridicule, and to
look upon conversation rather as raw material for pun-making than as a
means of expressing and interchanging ideas. The last straw was an
occasion when he spent half a night with Horace Mayhew in trying to make
a joke to complete a series for "Cruikshank's Almanack"--the very
situation in Pope's epigram:--

"You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come;
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home."

Meanwhile another had arisen who was destined to overshadow for many
years the rest of his colleagues, and while he lived to be the life and
soul of the undertaking--Mr. Punch incarnate. This was John Leech, whose
signature first appears on page 43 of the first volume.

When Mr. Frith, R.A., sought to persuade the overworked Leech to take a
holiday, he added, just to drive the matter home: "If anything happened
to you, who are the 'ba