y, raised his eyes from Bloomsbury to
Belgravia, and found equal fun and better sport in baiting the far more
contemptible airs and graces of John Thomas, "Flunkeiana" became a
fertile field from which he drew some of his most caustic productions.
He made them the severer, too, that during the Crimean War and the
dangers that threatened the land, Leech could not bear with patience the
sight of "pampered menials" passing their time in relatively idle
luxury, when they, together with linen-drapers' assistants and others
engaged in what is really woman's work, ought rather to have been
bearing arms, or at the very least drilling in the newly-formed force of
Volunteers.

Yet the Volunteers had not to thank Leech for anything much but chaff
during the early years of the movement. If anything could snuff out
patriotism, "The Brook Green Volunteer," the laughable satire on the
Militia, would have done it, and the square into which that warrior
formed himself would assuredly have been broken and dispersed. And truly
this series, famous and still appreciated as it is, lost a good deal of
its force from the presence of a fault not often found in Leech's
work--grotesqueness of invention and undue exaggeration. In time Charles
Keene made us forget the unintentional injustice Leech had done to a
noble movement; and as fate willed it, Mr. G. Haydon, who had greatly
assisted the author of it, Sir J. C. Bucknill, became later an artistic
contributor to _Punch_ and a friend, not only of Leech, but of several
of the most distinguished of the Staff.

And after the Crimean War was over, there was a social upheaval known as
"the great beard movement." Leech was very keen upon all this question
of moustaches, and held with many others that no one had a right to them
save the crack cavalry regiments. One day it happened that Leech,
Tenniel, and Pritchett were riding together, and, agreeing on the
subject, they arrived at cross-roads, where, holding their crops
together, they cried "We Swear!"--not to wear hair on lip or chin. In
1865 the unregenerate Mr. Pritchett went to Skye to practise
water-colour and--to let his moustaches grow! Returning in due time to
Tenniel's house, he said nothing, but merely opened the door, and thrust
in his face with an air of defiant resignation, and waited. Tenniel
started. "You scoundrel!" he exclaimed; "_then I must!_" And he did. But
Leech was proof against this example of degeneracy, and to the end
remain