heque, here reproduced, for the sum of
5-1/2_d._, payable to "Lynnlay Sam Bourne, Esqre," signed by me
backwards, crossed "Don't you wish you may get it and go." Sambourne
endorsed it "L. Sam. Bourne," and sent it to his bank. The clerk went
one better, and wrote "Cancelled" _backwards_ across my reversed
signature. It passed through my bank, and the money was paid. This is
probably unique in the history of banking.

[Illustration: SIR HENRY IRVING WRITES HIS NAME BACKWARDS.]

_A propos_ of writing backwards, in days when artists made their
drawings on wood everything of course had to be reversed, and writing
backwards became quite easy. To this day I can write backwards nearly as
quickly as I write in the ordinary way. One night at supper I was
explaining this, and furthermore told my friends that they themselves
could write backwards--in fact, they could not avoid doing so. Not of
course on the table, as I was doing, but by placing the sheet of paper
against the table underneath, and writing with the point upwards.
Perhaps my reader will try--and see the effect. For encouragement here
are a few of the first attempts on that particular evening.

[Illustration: SIR HENRY IRVING'S ATTEMPT.]

[Illustration: MR. J. L. TOOLE'S FIRST ATTEMPT.]

[Illustration: MR. J. L. TOOLE'S SECOND ATTEMPT.]

A few years ago a banquet was given at the Mansion House to the
representatives of French art; several English painters and others
interested in art were invited to meet them. Previous to being presented
to the Lord Mayor, every guest was requested to sign an autograph
album--an unusual proceeding, I think, at a City dinner. Were I Lord
Mayor I would compel my guests to sign their names--not on arrival, but
when leaving the Mansion House, and thus possess an autograph album of
erratic graphology, and one worth studying. In company with my friend
Mr. Whitworth Wallis, the curator of the Birmingham Museum and Art
Gallery, I entered the Mansion House, when we were immediately accosted
by a powdered flunkey in gorgeous uniform, in possession of the
autograph album, who presented a truly magnificent pen at us, and in
peremptory tones demanded our life or our signatures. Whitworth Wallis
wrote his first, with a dash and confidence. I stood by and admired.
"Oh," I said, taking the pen, "that's not half a dash; let me show you
mine."

[Illustration]

Jeames, in taking the pen from me, looked condescendingly over the page,
and with t