ithstanding which, Mr. Pen, there are
members of your calling who do not scruple to inform the world that in
drawing the Parliamentary 'Ha-ha!' as he is, H. F. is libelling him.
There is one M.P. in particular---- No, I shall not give his name or
show his portrait. I believe him to be very clever, very interesting,
undeniably a great man, and extremely vain of his personal appearance.
But he is built contrary to all the laws of Nature, and if H. F. draws
him as he is, he is accused of libelling him. If he improves him, no one
knows him. Oh, Mr. Pen, you may take it from me that the lot of the
caricaturist is not a happy one."

"For the matter of that," put in the Pen, "neither is the painter's. You
know Gay's lines:

"So very like, a painter drew,
That every eye the picture knew,
He hit complexion, feature, air,
So just, the life itself was there.
He gave each muscle all its strength,
The mouth, the chin, the nose's length,
His honest pencil touched with truth,
And marked the date of age and youth.
He lost his friends, his practice failed,--
Truth should not always be revealed."

But Gay did not live in the days of Sargent!"

"We are getting on nicely," said the Pen. "Now answer a question which
is often put to me--viz., why caricaturists eschew paint?"

"Because," replied the Pencil, "people often seem to forget that in the
present day, when events follow each other in quick succession, a
subject becomes stale almost before the traditional nine days' interest
in it has expired--that paint is no longer the medium by which a
caricaturist can possibly express his thoughts. Of course, I am not
referring to mere tinting, such as that in which the old caricaturists
had their drawings reproduced, but to colouring in oils, after the
manner of the great satirist Hogarth. Some may remember H. F.'s
caricature in _Punch_ of the late Serjeant-at-Arms, Captain Gosset, as a
black-beetle. Now, had he painted a full-length portrait of him, and
sent it elaborately framed to the Royal Academy, it would not only have
taken him very much longer to execute, but the Captain would not have
looked a whit more like a black-beetle than he did in black and white in
the pages of _Punch_.

"It must be remembered, also, that in caricature everything depends upon
contrast. For instance, in a Parliamentar