he air of a justice delivering judgment said to me:

"Beaten 'im by hinches, sir. Beaten 'im by hinches!"

Months after that I gave an entertainment one evening at Woolwich. My
audience was principally composed of Arsenal hands. On leaving the
platform I was taken into the Athletic Club rooms, and asked to sign
their autograph book and say a "few words" to the members. The few words
consisted of the "record" I had made in the signing match I had with Mr.
Wallis at the Mansion House--an incident which was brought to my mind
suddenly when I took the pen in my hand. It so happened that Whitworth
Wallis, who is a well-known lecturer on art matters, was on that same
night lecturing in the North of England, and as he left the platform at
the same hour as I at Woolwich, he was, like me, asked to sign an
autograph book, and told the very same story to his friends in the North
as I was telling under exactly similar circumstances, the same evening,
at the same hour, in the South. Neither of us knew that the other was
lecturing that night. It is not by any means a usual thing to be asked
to sign a club album, and Wallis and I had not met or corresponded since
the evening at the Mansion House.

After working many years for the _Illustrated London News_, I became a
contributor to the _Graphic_, and for that journal wrote and illustrated
a series of supplements upon "Life in Parliament"; but from this time
forward it would be difficult to name any illustrated paper with which I
have not at some time or other been connected. For instance, the
_Yorkshire Post_ a few years ago started a halfpenny evening paper, and
sent their manager down to me to ask my honorarium to illustrate the
first few numbers with character sketches of the members of the British
Association, who were holding their meetings that week in Leeds. This
was a happy thought, as the "British Asses," as they are too familiarly
called, sent these first numbers of the paper all over the country; the
new ship had something to start upon, and is now a prosperous concern.
There are various stories about the sum I received for this work. It was
a large sum for England, where enterprise of this kind is very rare. I
was "billed" all over the town as if I were a Patti or Paderewski, and
telegrams were sent to the London papers by the special reporters
announcing the terms upon which I was at work; altogether it was a bit
of Yankee booming that would have made a Harmsworth or a N