notwithstanding it was really a much more serious affair than was
imagined. It was a deliberately organised conspiracy. When I was leaving
the Lobby, after my amusing interview with Mr. MacNeill, in which he
told me that I was "technically assaulted," Chief Inspector Horsley took
me down a private passage, and informed me that he had been looking for
me, as he had discovered there was a conspiracy to attack me, and at
that moment nine or ten Members from Ireland were in the passage
downstairs, out of which I would have in the ordinary course gone
through, lying in wait for me. So I left with him by another door.

[Illustration: NOTE FROM SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD, AFTER READING THE BOGUS
ACCOUNT OF THE "ASSAULT."]

In this I was not more to blame than other caricaturists, but I was more
in evidence, and was selected to be "technically assaulted," so as to
force me to bring an action, in which all papers, except those
supporting the Irish Party, would have been attacked and discussed, and
their influence if possible injured for purely political purposes. An
aggrieved person, smarting under a gross injustice, does not
"technically assault" the aggressor. Had Mr. McNeill tried it on with
me, weak and ill as I was, I think I had enough power to oblige him; as
it happened, I only saw the humour of the thing.

[Illustration: LETTER SUPPOSED TO COME FROM LORD CROSS. (LOCKWOOD'S
JOKE.)]

One of the most amusing sketches I received was this from Sir Frank
Lockwood. Lockwood and I frequently exchanged caricatures, as shown by
the clever sketches I introduce here and there in these pages. Sometimes
he sent me some chaffing note written in a disguised hand, and disguised
drawing; but the latter experiment, although it failed to deceive,
certainly entertained me greatly. Here is a letter supposed to be from
Lord Cross, a favourite subject of mine when he was in the Lower House.
Seldom a week passed but I made his nose shorter and his upper lip
longer, made his head stick out, and his spectacles glisten. Did he
object? No, no! "Grand Cross" is a man of the world; nor was he ever a
mere notoriety-seeking political adventurer. I once met him at dinner,
and we chatted over my caricatures of him, and I recollect his saying,
"A man is not worth anything if he is thin-skinned, and certainly not
worth much if he cannot enjoy a joke at his own expense."

Sir Frank Lockwood whiled away the weary hours in Parliament to his own
amusement and th