n sketching a background for a
_Punch_ drawing in the East End, I noticed some labourers returning
from working at excavations, laughing over something they had found in
the ground; it was a splendid specimen of the Charles clay pipe, longer
than any I have seen. I bought it from them to present to Keene, but he
was ill then, and soon after the greatest master of black and white
England ever produced had passed away.

[Illustration: MY FIRST INVITATION FROM _PUNCH_.]

[Illustration: A LETTER FROM CHARLES KEENE, OBJECTING TO AN
EDITOR INTERVIEWING HIM.]

[Illustration: "Robert."]

After Keene the strangest character present was Mr. Deputy
Bedford--"Robert" in the pages of _Punch_--an undertaker in the City,
and one of the most humorous men within its boundary. I recollect
introducing my wife to him at some function at the Mansion House--not as
Robert, but as Mr. Deputy Bedford. She expressed her pleasure at meeting
one of the City dignitaries, and he offered to show her over the
treasures in the Mansion House. "There's a fine statue for you! Don't
know who did it, but we paid a thousand pounds for it. And that one over
there, which weighs half a ton less, cost twice as much. Oh! the
pictures are worth something, too. That portrait cost L800; I don't know
what that one cost, but the frame is cheap at L20. Yes, fine gold plate,
isn't it? Old designs? Yes, but old or new, boiled down, I should think
L80,000 wouldn't be taken for the pile!" And so on, and so on, with a
merry twinkle in his eye and an excellent imitation of what outsiders
consider City men to be.

[Illustration: GEORGE DU MAURIER.
_From a pen and ink drawing by himself, the property of the Author._]

My caricature of the genial E. L. S. (Sambourne) is not good, but quite
as kind as Sala's remarks were on that occasion in chaffing Sambourne
for turning up in morning costume. In the bottom right-hand corner of
the card is a note of the late Mr. W. H. Bradbury, one of the
proprietors of _Punch_, the kindest and the best host, the
biggest-hearted and most genial friend, I ever worked for. He has his
eye, I notice, on a gentleman making an impromptu speech--the sensation
of the evening--referred to by Mr. M. H. Spielmann in "The History of
_Punch_." Next to that irrepressible orator is Mr. Lucy, "Toby, M.P.,"
as I saw him first.

I note on this card an attempt to sketch du Maurier, the "Thackeray of
the pencil." By the way, I was certainly the first to