company--would
invite the rest of the Staff, or most of it, to dine at their private
houses. How many of these entertainments were offered by Leech to the
light-hearted and frisky band who

"Judicious drank and greatly daring dined"!

How many anecdotes might be told of such _reunions_, as they swooped
down on Landells or on Lemon at Herne Bay, or, in the rollicking days of
youthful indiscretion, would adjourn at midnight to serenade the
snoringly unconscious Hine away in the wilds of Hampstead!

Certain complimentary dinners offered to the _Punch_ Staff should find a
record here, if only on the ground of completeness. The first public
recognition was the Mansion House dinner which, under the title of
"Literature and Art," included the _Punch_ Staff, together with Charles
Dickens, the members of the Royal Academy, and a few newspaper men.
Dickens has left it upon record how his feelings were hurt at the
tactless way in which the well-meaning Lord Mayor, Sir James Duke,
Bart., M.P., imparted to his guests the pleasure it was to him to meet
with mere talent after being satiated with blood and rank in the persons
of Royalties, Dukes, and Cabinet Ministers. He made them feel, in
fact--and resent not a little--how hitherto the Mansion House had drawn
its line at them, an error which Sir Stuart Knill in 1893 had the better
taste to avoid. Somewhat of a similar blunder was made by Lord Carlisle,
who invited Thackeray, Jerrold, and others of the _Punch_ men to meet
one or two of their own set, firmly persuaded that he was about to revel
in brilliant conversation, entirely forgetful of the fact that in all
probability they were perfectly familiar with the others' stories and
had their tricks of humour by heart. The result, as might have been
expected, was an entertainment of conventional dulness. How could you
expect, at a meal so pretentiously forced, of such affected joviality,
to hear Jerrold ask the butler for "some of the old, not the elder,
port"? as he would in the sanctity of their own precincts; or retort on
one who declared his liking for calf's-tail, "Extremes meet!" or (when
the dish was calf's-head), "What egotism!" and yet again, "There's
brotherly love for you!" Not at my Lord Carlisle's, as in Bouverie
Street, would you hear Shirley Brooks ask the famous two-edged riddle
which Dean Hole reminds us of--"Why is Lady Palmerston's house like Swan
and Edgar's? Because it's the best house for muzzling Delane
(_mou