terproof_ ink--ink that will not _run_ when washed
over with water. The manufacturers of this article sent me a specimen
bottle to experiment with, and asked me for my opinion of it. In
replying, I sent the following note. The sketch was touched in to amuse
my youngest boy, who was puzzled by the meaning of Waterproof ink. The
makers, in acknowledging the note, asked me to mention the sum I would
accept if, with my permission, they used the note and sketch I sent as
an advertisement. I replied that they were welcome to use my note, but
that I could not accept payment. However I received in a few days a
large parcel of artists' materials: paints, sketch-books, brushes,
pencils, &c.

[Illustration]

This is more than I ever received for a better known advertisement: "I
used your soap two years ago." I was never offered so much as a cake of
soap from those who used my _Punch_ sketch so freely! Permission was
given for its use by the proprietors of _Punch_, not knowing I had any
objection, and at the time I was ill with fever and unable to protest.
The firm certainly paid me some years afterwards for the publication of
the same advertisement for two insertions in a periodical I was
starting, but only at the ordinary rate. I mention this fact as I have
heard from friends all over the world that I received untold gold for
the use of it, and as it has interested so many perhaps I may at the
same time clear up another fallacy, which I did not know existed until
I read Mr. Spielmann's "History of _Punch_." In that he refers to the
very "oft-quoted drawing (lately used as an advertisement), the idea of
which reached him from an anonymous correspondent. It is that of a
grimy, unshaven, unwashed, mangy-looking tramp, who sits down to write,
with a broken quill, a testimonial for a firm of soap-makers. A further
point of interest about this famous sketch was that Charles Keene was
deeply offended by it at first, in the groundless belief that it was
intended as a skit upon himself. It must at least be admitted that the
head is not unlike what one might have expected to belong to a
dissipated and dilapidated Charles Keene." Poor Keene! How sorry I was
to read this when too late to explain to him that he was never in my
mind for a moment when I was drawing it! But, strange to say, the
original who sat for it was a brother artist, another Charles, quite as
delightful as Keene, equally clever in his own way, and my greatest
friend--Cha