k-keeper, who luckily hove in sight.

"Hover there," he replied, gruffly, pointing to a stump that resembled
the sole remaining molar the old man possessed.

This stump was picturesque. It must be the Reformers' Tree.
Result--another sketch, which I showed to the gatekeeper at the Marble
Arch.

"Reformers' Tree? Why, there ain't no such thing in the Park." And I
really believe there isn't. It is a myth, and merely exists in the
fertile brain of the descriptive author or the imagination of the
agitator.

After James Payn's "Talk of the Town" no book has given me such pleasure
to illustrate as F. C. Burnand's "Incompleat Angler." The combination of
the picturesqueness of Isaak Walton with the humour of Burnand could not
be otherwise, but most unfortunately the form of its publication ruined
the effect of the drawings. Over this, too, the author and I talked--no,
not exactly--to be exact we laughed over it. I dined with Burnand, and
afterwards in his study he read it to me, and as he frankly admitted he
never laughed so much at anything before.

[Illustration: THE TYPICAL LOVERS IN ILLUSTRATIONS OF NOVELS.]

The illustrator's difficulties by no means end when the author is
satisfied. Many authors give you every facility, and hamper you with no
impossibilities; but then steps in the editor, especially if he be the
editor of a "goody" magazine. Novels will be novels, and love and lovers
will find their way even into the immaculate pages of our monthly
elevators. I once found it so, and certainly I thought that here was
plain sailing. A tender interview at the garden gate. She "sighed and
looked down as Charles Thorndike took her hand"--unavoidable and not
unacceptable subject. Lovers are all commonplace young men with large
eyes, long legs, and small moustaches (villains' moustaches grow apace);
moreover, lovers, I believe, generally take care to avoid observation;
but no! it appears that "our subscribers" have a stern code which may
not be lightly infringed. A letter from the editor rebukes my worldly
ways:

"DEAR SIR,--Will you kindly give Charles Thorndike a beard, and show
an aunt or uncle or some chaperon in the distance; the subject and
treatment is hardly suitable otherwise to our young readers."

Sometimes a publisher steps in and arranges everything, regardless of
all the author and artist may cherish.

Years ago a well-known but not very prosperous publisher sent for me,
and spoke as follows: