And to me were allotted the social and domestic dramas, the nursery, the school-room, the dining and drawing rooms, and croquet-lawns of the more or less well-to-do.
I was particularly told not to try to be broadly funny, but to undertake the light and graceful business, like a jeune premier. I was, in short, to be the tenor, or rather the tenorino, of that little company for which Mr. Punch beats time with his immortal baton, and to warble in black and white such melodies as I could evolve from my contemplations of the gentler aspect of English life, while Keene, with his magnificent, highly trained basso, sang the comic songs.
We all became specialised, so to speak, and divided Leech's vast domain among us.
We kicked a little at first, I remember, and whenever (to continue the musical simile) I could get in a comic song, or what I thought one, or some queer fantastic ditty about impossible birds and beasts and fishes and what not, I did not let the opportunity slip; while Keene, who had a very fine falsetto on the top of his chest register, would now and then warble, pianissimo, some little ballad of the drawing-room or nursery.
Illustration: FELINE AMENITIES
But gradually we settled into our respective grooves, and I have grown to like my little groove very much, narrow though it be—a poor thing, but mine own!
"I_wish_ you hadn't asked Captain Wareham, Lizzie. Horrid man! I can't bear him!"
"Dear me, Charlotte—isn't the world big enough for you both?"
"Yes; but your little Dining-room isn't!"—Punch, February 16, 1889.]
Moreover, certain physical disabilities that I have the misfortune to labour under make it difficult for me to study and sketch the lusty things in the open air and sunshine. My sight, besides being defective in many ways, is so sensitive that I cannot face the common light of day without glasses thickly rimmed with wire gauze, so that sketching out of doors is often to me a difficult and distressing performance. That is also partly why I am not a sportsman and a delineator of sport.