, and Buss dismissed.
Leech was already a good draughtsman on wood, having while resident with
Orrin Smith the wood-engraver--he who had previously tried to magnetise
the idea of a "London Charivari" into life--received many practical
hints of the greatest artistic value. For some time afterwards he worked
in harmony with his fellow-student of a literary turn, whose noble
brass-plate inscribed "Mr. Albert Smith, M.R.C.S., Surgeon-Dentist!"
once brought upon the artist, says Percival Leigh, the candid chaff, of
a vulgar street-urchin. "Good boy!" said Leech, appreciating the
attention and rewarding it with a penny. "Now go and insult somebody
else." He drew furthermore upon the stone, and distinguished himself in
"Bell's Life in London"--the paper to which several of the most eminent
comic artists of the day then contributed--and in 1841, five years after
his first-published "Etchings and Sketchings, by A. Pen, Esq.," he
issued in its complete form his "Children of the Mobility." It was at
that time that Percival Leigh, having satisfied himself of the character
and tone of the new comic paper, not only made his own debut in it, but
introduced his friend and colleague, John Leech--with what distressing
result as to his full-page block of "Foreign Affairs" the chapter on
cartoons discloses. (_See_ p. 173.) And here it may be added that all
was not plain sailing between Leech and _Punch_ at the commencement; for
soon after he resumed work he struck for higher terms. Until he got his
way he did no more work for the paper--as the reader may satisfy himself
by turning to its pages; and when he did, his triumph was visited, as
has already been described, upon the heads of less talented
contributors. It may safely be assumed that Leech knew nothing of this,
for the gentleness of the man was such that he could not have suffered
the idea that his success meant others' disadvantage.

Three things may be said to have brought Leech's powers as a humorous
draughtsman prominently before the public--his illustrations to the
"Comic Latin Grammar," the skit on the Mulready envelope (the most
successful of all the versions published), and his early _Punch_ work.
Mr. Frith tells of Mulready's indignation at Leech's drawing--not at the
caricature itself, but at the leech in a bottle, by which the
Academician took it for granted that the draughtsman meant to designate
him by innuendo as a "blood-sucker;" and of Leech's surprise and pain at
be