"Well, I have only got Sundays and one Wednesday next month disengaged,—I have got sittings on every other day. Will this be of any use to you?"
She was a model!
The first house I occupied after I married faced one occupied by a well-known and worthy fiery-tempered man of letters, and it so happened that one evening my wife and I were dining at the house of another neighbour. We were gratified to learn that our celebrated vis-à-vis, hearing we had come to live in the same square, was anxious to make our acquaintance. On our return home that night we discovered the latch-key had been forgotten, and unfortunately our knocking and ringing failed to arouse the domestics. It was not long, however, before we awoke our neighbours, and a window of the house opposite was violently thrown open, and language all the stronger by being endowed with literary merit came from that man of letters, who in the dark was unable to see the particular neighbours offending him, and he referred to my wife and myself in a way that could not be passed over. A battle of words ensued in which I was proved the victor, and my neighbour beat a hasty retreat. Before retiring I wrote a note to the friend we had just left to say that in the circumstances I refused to know my neighbour, and
MY FIGHTING DOUBLE. he had better inform him that I would on the first opportunity punch his head. By the same post I wrote for a particular model,—a retired pugilist. As soon as he arrived next morning I placed him at the window of my studio facing the opposite house, now and then sending him down to the front door to stand on the doorstep to await some imaginary person, and to keep his eye on the house opposite. I went on with my work in peace. Presently a note came:
"Dear Furniss,—Your neighbour has sent round to ask me what you are like. He has never seen you till this morning, and he is frightened to leave his house. He implores me to apologise for him."
He departed from the neighbourhood shortly afterwards.
Sad to relate that all Governmental undertakings of an artistic nature, from our most colossal public building or monument to the design of a postage stamp, are fair game for ridicule! The outward manifest record of the Post Office Jubilee—rather the "Post Office Jumble"—was the envelope and post card published by the Government and sold for one shilling. The pitiful character of the design, from an artistic point of view, shocked every person of taste; so I set to work and burlesqued it, strictly following the lines of the genuine article. A glance at my envelope alone, therefore, is sufficient to show the wretched quality of the original. It happened that the postmen's grievances were very prominent at that time. The Postmaster-General and the trade unionists and others were at fever heat, and excitement ran high. This caricature-parody, therefore, was a sketch with a purpose. It was said at one of the meetings that my pencil "may perhaps touch the public sympathy in behalf of the postman more effectually than any language has been able to do." The wretched thing was thought worthy of an article by Mr. M. H. Spielmann. My skit, it is needless to add, was very popular with the postmen. They showed their gratitude by saving many a misdirected letter. A letter addressed "Harry Furniss, London," has frequently found me, without the loss of a post.
