ill had previously appreciated the sketches, and begged
certain of them. But at last, on the occasion of an exuberant and
unflattering, but still not an ill-humoured, portrait, supported by a
solid contingent of his Party, he sought the artist out and, reproaching
him in excited and unmeasured terms, he committed a "technical assault"
upon him. Mr. Furniss was not to be induced to retaliate, even when Dr.
Tanner, M.P., and others who surrounded him addressed him in words more
violent and offensive than Mr. MacNeill's, and threatened him with
corporal punishment. As it appeared to the draughtsman that it was all a
pre-arranged affair, he remained passive, lest a development of the
situation should lead--as it was probably intended that it should
lead--to his exclusion from the Lobby. _Punch_ himself, however, snapped
his fingers at this _argumentum baculinum_, and Mr. Furniss, with rare
good taste, revenged himself by a full-page drawing (21st September,
1893) of "A House of Apollo-ticians," in which every member has been
idealised to a point of extraordinary personal beauty, while the artist
himself appears in the corner as a malignant ape of hideous aspect. This
was balm, no doubt, to the gentleman who had been so incensed at being
"caricatured, now as a potato, now as a gorilla;" while the situation
was cleverly summed up thus:--

"O, Mr. MacNeill was quite happy until a
Draughtsman in _Punch_ made him like a gorilla--
At the Zoo the gorilla quite happy did feel
Till the draughtsman in _Punch_ made him like the MacNeill."

Meanwhile, several series of importance had come from his pencil. His
"Puzzle-heads" are marvels of ingenuity, in each of which a portrait of
a celebrity is built up of personal attributes, characteristics, or
incidents in the career of the person represented; his Lika Joko
"Japanneries" caught with amazing truth the spirit of Japanese
draughtsmanship--far more completely than either Bennett or Brunton ever
succeeded in achieving; and his "Interiors and Exteriors" reflect social
and public life with exuberant, almost with extravagant, humour.

But the end of his connection with _Punch_ was at hand. He had joined in
October, 1880. He had been called to the Table four years later, and on
the 21st February, 1894, he ate his last dinner at it, and resigned in
the following month. Meanwhile, like Charles Keene, he was never one of
the salaried Staff, but to the end was paid by the square inch.