n. It was then he hit upon the plan I have just
told you about. He draws in his pocket. Keeping the card against his
leg, he sketches quite easily. A pocket Hercules is an oft enough
heard-of individual--so why not a pocket artist?

[Illustration: SKETCH ON A SHIRT-CUFF.]

"Previous to this he used to make a rapid note on his shirt-cuff; but
that is a dangerous practice. Wives might resent the face if it were too
pretty, and your washerwoman might recognise a Member of Parliament as
her intimate friend. The incident which cured him of using his
shirt-cuff for sketching happened at a large dinner, where he was
introduced to the wife of a well-known public man, who soon showed she
was not altogether pleased by the introduction, and truly at the moment
he had forgotten that he had made a sketch of the lady on his
shirt-cuff, which he did not take sufficient care to conceal.

[Illustration]

"I recollect once on the terrace of the House of Commons he was
sketching a lady of foreign extraction, the wife of a gentleman
well-known to the Irish Party, with a profile something like this. I
made the sketch, unfortunately, on the marble tea-table. When H. F.'s
friends were leaving, he found he could not rub this off the table, and
what embarrassed him more was the fact that some Irish Members were
bearing down to take possession of the table as soon as we left. I had a
rapid vision of our guv'nor floating in the Thames, being hurled over by
the infuriated Members from the Emerald Isle; so I quickly transformed
the lady into something resembling a popular Member of Parliament at the
time, and, as we were leaving, I overheard an Irish Member say, 'Bedad!
and Furniss has been dhrawin' that owld beauty, Mundella!'

[Illustration: "MUNDELLA."]

"Have you anything new?" asked the Pen. "May I look? I know that St.
Stephen's is your happy hunting ground."

"Ah, yes," responded the Pencil, "I know it well. But I can tell you it
is not altogether a bed of roses. When we come across Members who have
taken liberties with their personal appearance during the recess, H. F.
and I resent it, I can tell you."

"Naturally," observed the Pen in a voice of the utmost sympathy, "for it
means more work."

"Of course," continued the Pencil. "Now I have always held that model M.
P.'s have no right to alter. They are the property of the political
caricaturist, and what on earth is to become of him if the bearded men
begin to shave and the smoot