PUNCH'S PRESENT DINING-HALL IN BOUVERIE STREET, WHITEFRIARS.
The room in which it was held, so long the Temple of the Comic Muse, had little in itself to command the attention of the superficial observer. The stairs which Thackeray trod, and which resounded to the quick light step of Jerrold and to the heavier tread of Leech, exist no longer; but the classic shrine is practically as it was when the "Fat Contributor," pushing roughly past the young 'prentice engraver who opened the door to his ring, gave no thought to him who was soon to make the name of Birket Foster famous in the land.
MARK LEMON'S MONOGRAM,
CUT ON THE PUNCH TABLE.
To-day a large—one might say an imposing—apartment on the first floor looking upon the street is approached, as most front offices in London City are approached, from a landing leading through an open office. Upon the table are a water-jug and a couple of goblets of cheap and distinctly unlovely Bohemian glass. A tobacco-box, hardly less ugly (coëval, one would say, with the room itself), a snuff-box, and long pipes serve to recall that respect for the past and for tradition which is one of the most delightful, as it is one of the most successful, elements in Punch's composition. Here you may see Sir John Tenniel's long churchwarden, with his initials marked upon it, and Charles Keene's little pipe—for these two men would ever prefer a stem between their teeth to a cigar-stump. Statuettes in plaster of John Leech and of Thackeray, by Sir Edgar Boehm, as well as a bust of Douglas Jerrold, decorate the mantelpiece or the dwarf-cupboard; and on the walls are many frames of abiding interest.
PERCIVAL LEIGH'S MONOGRAM.
