"Really," said he, "this is too bad! I wrote to you to meet me at the Surrey Theatre last night, and you never turned up. We go to press to-day, and the sketches are not even made."
"I don't quite understand you," I replied, "for I never heard from you in my life, and I don't think that you ever saw me before."
"But surely you are Mr. ——?" (a contributor who had been drawing for Punch for some weeks). "Are you not?"
"No," I said. "My name is Furniss, and I understood that you wanted to see me."
MY FIRST MEETING WITH THE EDITOR OF PUNCH.
This was in 1880, and from that period up to the time of my resignation from the staff of Punch I certainly do not think that I have ever seen Burnand's face assume such a threatening and offended expression as it wore that day.
I was then twenty-six. Strange to say, Charles Keene and George du Maurier were exactly the same age when they first made their début in Punch, but not yet invited to "join the table."
As I was leaving my house one summer evening a few years afterwards, the youngest member of my family, who was being personally conducted up to bed by his nurse, enquired where I was going.