THE "JETTY."
My second instance occurred about the same period. The author was the most delightful and entertaining of literary men of our time, Mr. James Payn. I was selected to illustrate the serial story in the Illustrated London News, and as in that also the author minutely describes the scene of the semi-historical romance, I, being a thoroughly conscientious artist, visited James Payn, then editor of Cornhill, in his editorial den in Waterloo Place, to talk the matter over. My notes were: "Jetty—Lovers meet—Ancient church—Old houses." But the "Jetty" was the important object—I must get that. I therefore started for the South Coast. Again I was forced to bow down before my author's wonderful powers of imagination, for once more, in company with my wife, with a hireling to carry my sketching stool and materials, I walked a great distance in search of the jetty. Vain, vain! not a ghost of a jetty was to be seen. The menial could not enlighten us. At last we unearthed the "oldest inhabitant," who took us back to where a few sticks in the water alone marked where it stood "a many years ago." I tried to develop some of the powers of the late Professor Owen, when he constructed an animal from the smallest bone, and succeeded in "evolving" a jetty from the green remains of four wooden posts.
I forgave Payn as I forgave Besant. Both men were as genial as they were eminent, and but for the circumstances of illustrating their stories I might not have enjoyed their acquaintanceship. I also illustrated Payn's most charming story, "The Talk of the Town," for Cornhill Magazine. I never enjoyed any work of the kind so well as this—it has always been my regret Payn did not write another of the same period. I recollect, when I first saw him in Waterloo Place, I had just read an article of his in which he gave a recipe for getting rid of callers, which was to bring the conversation to an abrupt termination, say absolutely nothing, but steadfastly stare at your visitor until he left. I can vouch for its being a simple and effective plan.
ILLUSTRATION FOR "THE TALK OF THE TOWN" (REDUCED).
By permission of the proprietors of "Cornhill Magazine."
When I entered his editorial sanctum the genial essayist received me most cordially, and looked the picture of comfort, surrounded as he was by a heterogeneous collection of pipes. Presently, through the clouds of smoke through which he had chatted in that lively, vivacious manner peculiarly his own, he knocked the ashes out of his finished pipe and mutely stared point-blank at me till I, like the pipe, went out also. But before making my exit I reminded him that I had read the article I refer to, up to which he was no doubt acting, and that I was pleased and interested that he practised the doctrine he preached. Possibly this remark of mine was unexpected, and therefore somewhat disconcerted him for a moment, for he quickly replied, "Not at all! not at all! Fact is, I was rather upset before you came in by a miserable man who called to see me, and at the moment I was, à propos of him, thinking of a funny story about Theodore Hook I came across last night I never heard before. Poor Hook was at a smart dinner one evening, but instead of being as usual the life and soul of the party, he proved the wet blanket on the merry meeting, despite the fact that he, in all probability, had imbibed his stiff glass of brandy to get him up to his usual form before entering the house at which he was entertained. This most unusual phase of Hook's character surprised everybody present, so much so that his host ventured to remark that the volatile Theodore did not seem so merry as usual.
"'Merry? I should think not! I should like to see anyone merry who has gone through what I have this afternoon!'
"'What was that?' asked everyone, with one voice.
"'Well, I'll tell you,' said Hook. 'I have just come up from York in the stage coach, and I was rather late in taking my seat; the top was occupied to the full, so I had no alternative but to become an inside passenger. The only other occupant of the interior was a melancholy individual rolled up in a corner. He had donned his great-coat, the collar of which was turned right up over his ears. He stolidly sat there, never uttering a word, until I became fascinated by his weird appearance. By-and-by the sun sank below the western horizon, the inside of the coach became darker and darker, and more ghastly seemed the cadaverous stranger as the blackness increased. The strain was too much for me. I could not keep silent another minute.
"'My good sir,' I said, 'whatever is the matter with you?'"