earing in the
evening on the stage, and I on the platform). A street hawker proffered
the comedian a metal pencil-case for the sum of a halfpenny. Toole made
this valuable purchase. As soon as I left the platform that night, I
found a note for me, inviting me to the theatre directly after the
performance. Toole came back on to the stage, and making me an elaborate
and complimentary speech, referring to me as "a brother artist in
another sphere," etc., etc., presented me with the pencil! I made an
appropriate reply, and we went to supper.

The following paragraph from the pen of Mr. Toole appeared in the Press
the next day in London as well as the provinces:

"Brother artists, even when working in different grooves, do not lack
appreciation of each other's work. After Mr. Harry Furniss's lecture in
Leeds the other night, he and Mr. Toole foregathered; and the popular
and genial actor presented the 'comedian of the pencil' with a very neat
and handsome pencil-case, just adapted for the jotting down, wherever
duty takes him, of those graphic sketches with which the caricaturist
amuses us week by week."

I must confess I am sometimes guilty of mild practical jokes, but I am
always careful to select reciprocative and kindred spirits--with such a
spirit of practical joking as J. L. Toole, for instance. He and I have
had many a joke at each other's expense. It so happened that when he was
producing the great success, "The House Boat," he wintered at Hastings,
where I had a house for the season, and we saw a great deal of each
other. Toole was always what is called a bad study--that is, it was with
great difficulty and pain he learnt his parts. On this occasion the time
was drawing nearer and nearer for the production; he was getting more
and more nervous about his new part, and I received a visit from his
friend the late Edmund Routledge, asking me to protect "Johnny" from his
friends--in other words, to keep his whereabouts dark, as he had to
study. Toole had had one or two little practical jokes with me, which I
owed him for, so having to rush up to town, I had the following letter
written to him:

"DEAR MR. TOOLE,--I suppose you recollect your old friends in Smoketown
when you performed one night at our Hall and did us the honour of
stopping at our house over Sunday. You then kindly asked us all to stop
with you when we went to London--a promise we have treasured ever since.
We called at Maida Vale yesterday, but find