ject of his
plunging blanc-mange, similarly apostrophised, had not been imported by
some sort of magic into _Punch's_ page. A similar coincidence, far
graver in its first suggestion, has been given me by Mr. Arnold-Forster.
A friend of his sent in to _Punch_ a comic sketch of the Tsar travelling
by railway, while he sent a decoy train _in the opposite
direction_--which was blown up! The paper containing the sketch was
printed by the Monday, and before it was published that had really
occurred which _Punch_ had playfully invented. Until the following week,
when an explanation was published, a certain section of the public
criticised, with justifiable severity, what they took to be the bad
taste and ill-timed fooling of the Jester.

From Mr. Harry Furniss's pen came an oft-quoted drawing (lately used as
an advertisement), the idea of which reached him from an anonymous
correspondent. It is that of the grimy, unshaven, unwashed,
mangy-looking tramp, who sits down to write, with a broken quill, a
testimonial for a firm of soap-makers: "I used your Soap two years ago;
_since then I've used no other_." 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. But the nature of Mr. Furniss's work was of such a kind,
and the artist himself has always overflowed with so prodigal a flood of
original quaintness, that comparatively few sketches were ever sent in
to him, or, being sent, were used. The origin of one of his
creations--that of the Sergeant-at-Arms as a beetle--is an example of
the lightness and quickness of his fancy. This representation, it has
been said, was generally supposed to bear some spiteful sort of
reference to the shape of Captain Gosset's legs, which in breeches and
silk stockings did not perhaps appear to the best advantage; and,
further, that the idea was suggested by the appearance on the floor of
the House of Commons, in the course of a particularly wearisome debate,
of a monster black-beetle marching slowly across under the eyes of the
Representatives of the People, breaking the monotony of the proceedings,
and arousing altogether disproportionate interest among the yawning
members; that the "stranger" was quickly spied by the artist, who a