he Inner Lobby of the House
of Commons.

[Illustration: REDUCTION OF PAGE IN _PUNCH_, SHOWING THAT MY CARICATURES
WERE--IN THIS CASE--PUBLISHED TOO LARGE.]

Perhaps in the circumstances I may be pardoned if I confess a secret
connected with these Parliamentary caricatures. For some years I
provided a page drawing and some small cuts in every number during
Parliament--the latter were generally sketches of Members of Parliament.
These single portraits were supplied in advance, and engraved proofs
sent in a book to Mr. Lucy to select from week by week. The following
letter is worth quoting in full as a characteristic letter from the
Editor, typical of his light and pleasant way of transacting business
with his staff:

"Dear H. F.,--"Please keyindly see that H. L. (not 'Labby,' but 'Lucy')
has all your parliamentarians whom you (as your predecessor Henry VIII.
did) have executed on the block sent to him, as he found himself
unprovided up to the last moment and so wrote to me in his haste.

"(?) Fancy portrait. Our artist, H. F., as Henry VIII. taking off his
victims' heads on the block, eh?
"Yours, "F. C. B."

To this rule, however, there were exceptions. This particular caricature
was one of them: it was drawn at the last moment to illustrate a
particular passage in Mr. Lucy's Diary of Toby, M.P. Here it is:

"'Look here, Bartley,' said Tommy Bowles; 'if you're going on that tack,
you must come and sit on this side. When I saw MacNeill open his mouth
to speak, I confess I thought I was going to be swallowed whole. You sit
here; there's more of you.'"

[Illustration: REDUCTION FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAWING, SHOWING THAT I GAVE
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CARICATURE TO BE "REDUCED AS USUAL."]

Now had I shown "Pongo," as he was familiarly called in the House, in
the act of swallowing "Tommy Bowles," I might have produced a most
objectionable caricature. I made, however, a smiling portrait of the
genial Member. I was away at the time recovering from a long illness:
the sketch was made in the country, and sent up to the _Punch_
engraver's office. By some mistake there, it was not reduced in size in
reproduction as others had been; therefore in the paper it was
apparently given extra importance--I had nothing to do with that. That
Mr. Lucy's reference to Mr. MacNeill is not a caricature can be judged
by anyone reading the passage I had to illustrate, given abo