paid,
being concerned in it at all, the line simply came in the ordinary way
from one of the Staff--from the man who, with Landells, had conceived
_Punch_ and shaped it from the beginning, and had invented that first
Almanac which had saved the paper's life--Henry Mayhew.

To trace the history of much of _Punch's_ original humour would hardly
be desirable, even were it possible. But there are many examples of it
which, while essentially original to _Punch_, have yet sprung from
circumstances independent of it, and are in themselves amusing enough to
be related, or which otherwise present points of interest. To some of
these I call attention, for they illustrate _Punch's_ own aphorism that
"it is easier to make new friends than new jokes."

There is a capital story in Mr. Le Fanu's "Seventy Years of Irish Life,"
in which the author tells of a man who was accidentally knocked down by
the buffer of a locomotive near Bray Station. He was not seriously hurt,
and but partially stunned; and the porters who quickly ran to the spot
determined to take him to the station at once. The hero of the accident,
overhearing where they were carrying him, imagined that he was being
given in charge. "What do you want to take me to the station for?" he
asked. "You know me; and if I've done any damage to your d----d engine,
sure I'm ready to pay for it!" This story of Mr. Le Fanu's reached
Keene's ears long before the author incorporated it in his book, and
with the change of hardly a word it illustrated one of the best drawings
the artist ever drew.

Though undoubtedly many of _Punch's_ jokes are deliberately
manufactured, or else improved from actual incidents, a vast
number--like that quoted just now--are used with but slight textual
editing, just as they occurred. Thus Joe Allen it was--the light-hearted
artist who contributed an article to _Punch's_ first number--who
provided Mr. du Maurier years afterwards with that "social agony" in
which a great lover of children, invited to a juvenile party, bursts
into the room with the cry of "Here we are again"--walking in on his
hands like a clown--to find that he had come to the wrong house next
door, and was scandalising a sedate and stately dinner party. Henry
Mayhew had a story of which a facetious police officer of his
acquaintance was the hero. The latter was driving "Black Maria" along
the street when he was hailed by a waggish omnibus-driver who affected
to mistake the depressing chara