"'I'll tell you,' he slowly muttered. 'Some months ago I invested in two tickets in a great lottery, but when I told my wife of the speculation I had indulged in she nagged and nagged at me to such a frightful extent that at last I sold the tickets.'
"'Well?'
"'Well, do you know, sir, to-day those two numbers won the two first prizes, and those two prizes represent a sum of money of colossal magnitude!'
"'Goodness gracious me!' I shouted. 'If that had happened to me it would have driven me to desperation! In fact I really believe that I should have been frantic enough to cut my throat!'
"'Why, that's just what I have done!' replied the stranger, as he turned down his collar. 'Look here!'"
"THAT'S JUST WHAT I HAVE DONE!"
This ghastly tale reminds me of one of my earliest and most trying experiences in illustrating stories. I had made a very careful drawing to illustrate a startling episode in a novel by Mrs. Henry Wood. Naturally it was designed on a block, and represented the hero having just swallowed poison after committing a murder. The face in the drawing was everything, and I had taken the greatest pains to depict in the distorted features all the authoress desired—in fact, I was rather proud of it. The authoress was pleased, and the block was sent to the engraver. I was then about twenty—photographing a drawing on to wood was unknown, and process work was not invented—all drawings were made on boxwood and engraved by hand. To my horror the engraver returned the block to me a week afterwards with an apologetic note. The face had been destroyed in the engraver's hands, and he had "plugged the block"—that is, another piece of wood had been inserted where the hero's head had been, and whitened over, for me to draw another. The rest of the design had been engraved. That face gone! How could I conjure it up again on that unsightly, isolated patch of block, with all the rest of the drawing engraved and therefore my lines undiscernible? I did my best. When it was printed it was seen that the face did not fit on the neck properly, and to my chagrin I received a sarcastic letter from the editor to inform me that I had made a mistake. The hero had swallowed poison and had not, as I supposed, cut his head off!
SPECIMEN OF JAMES PAYN'S WRITING.