John Leech, His Life and Work Volume I Part 10

Here follows Leech's "dry note":

"32, Brunswick Square, London, "June 6, 1859.

"DEAR SIR,

"The editor of _Punch_ is the person who should be addressed upon all money matters connected with that periodical. However, in the present instance, perhaps it will answer every purpose if I adopt the suggestion of your 'great _friend_ and _confidant_,' and '_do the handsome_ and send a _tip direct_,' which I do in the shape of a post-office order for one guinea; or, as your 'entirely _disinterested_' young friend is to have half of what you get, it will be even better if I make the order for two guineas instead, as I do, only you must not look upon this as a precedent. I am afraid Mr. Punch would have considered that the trouble and expense he was at to have an original design made to your few lines would have been ample recompense. In future send to the editor your notion of what you expect for any contribution, and he will accept or reject accordingly, I dare say.

"Yours faithfully, "JOHN LEECH."

The Eton boy was "indignant, and wrote back to Leech returning the money," to which Leech replied as follows:

"32, Brunswick Square, "November 8, 1859.

"DEAR SIR,

"No, no; it must be as it is; besides, the order is made out in your name, and can be used by no one else. After all, your contribution was very amusing, and pray consider yourself as quite ent.i.tled to the sum offered. If you have any doubt as to how you should spend the money, why, then, buy some gloves for the young lady who said the smart thing to the Oxford man. As to my being offended, dismiss the notion from your mind at once. Your first note I consider perfectly good-natured, and your second as frank and gentleman-like. I hope you will do me the favour to accept two volumes of my sketches, in which I hope you will find some amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I will direct the volumes to be sent to you this afternoon.

"Believe me, dear sir, "Yours faithfully, "JOHN LEECH."

Encouraged by Leech's kindness, and being, as he says, "a born caricaturist in the opinion of his friends," the Eton boy sent some sketches for Leech's opinion. To this application he received the following reply:

"32, Brunswick Square, "June 11, 1859.

"MY DEAR SIR,

"I am very busy, so you must excuse a rather short note. Your sketches I have looked at carefully, however, and I have no hesitation in saying that they show a great perception of humour on your part. They seem to me to be altogether very good; and I have no doubt that with practice you might make your talent available in _Punch_ and elsewhere. I don't know about your taking lessons, except from Nature, and learn from her as much as possible. Try your hand at some initial letters--if drawn on the wood clearly, so much the better--and I will, with great pleasure, hand them to the editor of _Punch_. 'The Pleasures of Eton' is capital; the style, I take it, founded a little upon Doyle's works. I would not do that too much. You have quite cleverness enough to strike out a path of your own, and with my best wishes for your success,

"Believe me, "Yours faithfully, "JOHN LEECH."

In sending these letters the Eton boy of old says he is "sure that nothing would more thoroughly exemplify Leech's genial wit and courteous kindliness than these replies to an unknown schoolboy." I suppose the letter in which my friend was invited to call upon Leech "in the holidays" is not to be found. But that he did call and received a present of "wood-blocks to work upon," accompanied by "encouragement to persevere," which, alas! he has not done, we have from himself.

This incident is especially delightful, as it reflects perfectly the quality of heart and mind so characteristic of Leech.

CHAPTER VII.

MR. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR.

Mr. Surtees, the writer of the sporting novels, possessed considerable powers of invention, which he indulged--amongst other vagaries--in giving names to most of the characters in his books, which served to enlighten his readers as to their physical and mental peculiarities, and never more happily than when he christened the hero of this sporting tour Mr. Soapy Sponge. "Mr. Sponge," says our author, "wished to be a gentleman without knowing how;" but what Mr. Sponge did know was how to sponge upon everybody with whom he could force an acquaintance, and this he effected with surprising success. Hunting and good hunting quarters were the objects of Mr. Sponge's machinations, and upon a half-hearted invitation from a Mr. Jawleyford, of Jawleyford Court, an invitation given without an idea that it would be accepted (as sometimes happens), Mr. Sponge found himself installed in the ancestral mansion of the Jawleyfords. Mr. Jawleyford was "one of the rather numerous race of paper-booted, pen-and-ink landowners," says Mr. Surtees, "whose communications with his tenantry were chiefly confined to dining with them twice a year in the great entrance-hall after the steward, _Mr.

Screwemtight_, had eased them of their rents." Then Mr. Jawleyford would s.h.i.+ne forth the very impersonification of what a landlord ought to be.

Dressed in the height of fas.h.i.+on, he would declare that the only really happy moments of his life were those when he was surrounded by his tenantry.

In the background of this admirable drawing we see Mr. Jawleyford's portrait, flanked by his ancestors, on canvas and in armour, hanging on the panelled walls of his gorgeous home. The variety of character in the "chawbacons," each a marked individuality, contrasts effectually with his _quasi_ fas.h.i.+onable landlord. For the first banquet at Jawleyford Court, "Mr. Sponge," says the author, "made himself an uncommon swell."

His dress is minutely described, and faithfully depicted by Leech, in the etching in which we see the sponger conducting a very portly Mrs.

Jawleyford, followed by her daughters, to the dining-room. The young ladies who have entered the drawing-room "in the full fervour of sisterly animosity," according to the author, seem--in the lovely group that Leech makes of them--to have speedily made up their quarrel, as their entwined arms and pretty, happy faces prove. The solemn butler, who looks with awe at his aristocratic master, is in Leech's truest vein, while Mr. Jawleyford himself is simply perfect. In the footmen and page the ill.u.s.tration is less successful; they seem to approach, if not to reach, caricature.

When Mr. Sponge found himself in good quarters, no hint however strong, no looks however cold, no manner however unpleasant, would move him, until he had provided himself with others to his liking. Under the impression that he was rich, the Misses Jawleyford set their caps at him. Amelia and Emily rivalled each other in tender attentions to the adventurer, who, after hesitating as to which of them he should throw the handkerchief to, fixed upon Miss Amelia, who found her sister "in the act of playing the agreeable" with Mr. Sponge as she "sailed" into the drawing-room before dinner; then, "with a haughty sort of sneer and toss of the head to her sister, as much as to say, 'What are you doing with my man?'--a sneer that suddenly changed into a sweet smile as her eye encountered Sponge's--she just motioned him off to a sofa, where she commenced a _sotto-voce_ conversation in the engaged-couple style."

During his stay at Jawleyford Court, Mr. Sponge's time was pa.s.sed in hunting, smoking all over the house--a habit the owner detested--and in making love to Miss Amelia; taking care, however, not to commit himself until he had discovered from papa what the settlements were to be. We who are behind the scenes know that Jawleyford Court is "mortgaged up to the chimney-pots," and that Mr. J. is over head and ears in debt besides. We know also that Mr. Sponge is impecunious, his hunters are hired; he is, in fact, as his author describes him, "a vulgar humbug."

"Jawleyford began to suspect that Sponge might not be the great 'catch'

he was represented," says the author. No doubt in finding himself baffled in his attempts to sound his host upon the subject of settlements, Mr. Sponge also "began to suspect" that neither of the Misses Jawleyford would be the "catch" that he wanted. Still, he held on to his quarters in defiance of the attempts to get rid of him. He was removed from the best bedroom to one in which it was impossible to light a fire, or, rather, to endure it when it was alight, because of an incurable smoky chimney. He was given poor food and corked wine, still he stayed, until he had provided himself with a temporary home at the house of a hunting gentleman named Puffington.

Mr. Puffington, who made Sponge's acquaintance at the covert-side where Lord Scamperdale's hounds met, "got it into his head" that Mr. Sponge was a literary man, whose brilliant pen was about to be employed in the interest of fox-hunting in general, and of certain runs of Mr.

Puffington's hounds in particular. Mr. Puffington "was the son of a great starch-maker at Stepney." Puffington, senior, made a large fortune, which enabled his son to become the owner of Hanby House, and of the "Mangeysterne--now Hanby-Hounds," because he thought they would give him consequence. Our author says, Mr. Puffington "had no natural inclination for hunting," but he seems to have become M.F.H. so that he might entertain some of the sporting friends he had made at college, such "das.h.i.+ng young sparks as Lord Firebrand, Lord Mudlark, Lord Deuceace, Sir Harry Blueun, Lord Legbail, now Earl of Loosefish," and so on.

My s.p.a.ce, or, rather, the want of it, prevents my telling how it was that Mr. Sponge "awoke and found himself famous" as an author. In conjunction with a friend, who steered him through the spelling and grammar, he concocted an article for the _Swillingford Patriot_--Grimes, editor--which "appeared in the middle of the third sheet, and was headed, 'Splendid Run with Mr. Puffington's Hounds.'" Mr. Grimes was ably a.s.sisted in his editorial duties by "his eldest daughter, Lucy--a young lady of a certain age, say liberal thirty--an ardent Bloomer, with a considerable taste for sentimental poetry, with which she generally filled the Poet's Corner."

As Mr. Puffington quite expected to be immortalized in some work of general circulation, his indignation knew no bounds when he found himself relegated to a corner of the county paper, and all his hopes of his doings being read by "the Lords Loosefish, the Sir Toms and Sir Harrys of former days" grievously disappointed. Never, surely, were disgust, disappointment, and rage more perfectly expressed than in the second portrait of Mr. Puffington: not only the face, but the whole figure--one can fancy how the hand in the pocket of the dressing-gown is clenched--denotes the surprise and exasperation of the miserable man.

Mr. Sponge's literary effort has "done for him" with Mr. Puffington. He must go. Easier said than done.

"Couldn't you manage to get him to go?" asked Mr. Puffington of his valet.

"Don't know, sir. I could try, sir--believe he's bad to move, sir," said the valet.

Driven to despair, the host "scrawled a miserable-looking note, explaining how very ill he was, how he regretted being deprived of Mr.

Sponge's agreeable society--hoped he would come another time," and so on. Even the "sponger" felt the difficulty of parrying such a palpable notice to quit. "He went to bed sorely perplexed," and in his waking moments trying to remember "what sportsmen had held out the hand of good fellows.h.i.+p and hinted at hoping to have the pleasure of seeing him"; he could think of no one to whom he could volunteer a visit. But Fortune favours the brave sponger, as she often does unworthy people, and in Mr.

Jogglebury Crowdey, an eccentric individual whose acquaintance Sponge had made in the hunting-field, he found another host. At the suggestion of Mrs. Jogglebury, who, without the slightest reason, had taken it into her head that Mr. Sponge was a wealthy man, and would make a satisfactory G.o.dfather to one of her children, Mr. Jogglebury called on Mr. Sponge at the Puffington mansion, and invited him to "pay us a visit."

No sooner does our hero grasp the situation than he says:

"Well, you're a devilish good fellow, and I'll tell you what, as I am sure you mean what you say, I'll take you at your word and go at once."

And in this determination he persists, though Mr. J. pleads for some delay, as Mrs. Jogglebury Crowdey requires some little time for preparation in receiving so distinguished a guest.

The visit to Puddingpote Bower, as the Jogglebury dwelling was called, proved as unfortunate as the previous visits; the more people saw of Mr.

Sponge the less they liked him, and this time the dislike was mutual.

"Jog and Sponge," says the author, "were soon most heartily sick of each other." Mr. Sponge soon began to think that it was not worth while staying at Puddingpote Bower for the mere sake of his keep, "seeing there was no hunting to be had from it."

Within twelve or thirteen miles from the Bower there lived Sir Harry Scattercash, a very fast young gentleman indeed. He kept "an ill-supported pack of hounds, that were not kept upon any fixed principles; their management was only of the scrimmaging order," but Mr.

Sponge, scenting an invitation, determined to make one amongst the field.

In his attempt to "go it," my lord "was ably a.s.sisted by Lady Scattercash, late the lovely and elegant Miss Glitters, of the Theatre Royal, Sadler's Wells. Lady Scattercash could ride--indeed, she used to do scenes in the circle (two horses and a flag), and she could drive, and smoke, and sing, and was possessed of many other accomplishments."

What a winning creature Leech has made of her, and the scarcely less delightful little tiger behind her, may be seen in the ill.u.s.tration which the law of copyright prevents me from introducing, as it also prohibits the appearance here of Sir Harry, her husband, the happy possessor of the charming Lady Scattercash.

"Sometimes," says the author of "Sponge," "Sir Harry would drink straight on end for a week!" Mr. Sponge made desperate efforts to take up his abode at Nonsuch House, but Sir Harry was surrounded by congenial spirits, who, one and all, had taken prejudice against that worthy; so, beyond a hunting dinner, at which everybody, including the ladies, took more wine than was good for them, Mr. Sponge and Nonsuch House were strangers to each other for a time. But, as the hunting-field is open to all and sundry, Mr. Sponge, not easily daunted, put in a frequent appearance, in the sure and certain hope that admission to free quarters at Sir Harry's was only delayed. Beyond what is elegantly called "peck and perch," Nonsuch House contained a very powerful attraction in the form of Miss Lucy Glitters, sister to Lady Scattercash. Miss Lucy was a lovely person, and her charms were increased in Mr. Sponge's eyes because he persuaded himself that the sister-in-law of a baronet must necessarily be a rich woman. Miss Lucy had also the conviction that Mr.

Sponge was a rich man; how else could he spend his time in the sports of the field, with all their expensive accompaniments? Miss Glitters was a bold rider, and that accomplishment also endeared her to the gentleman in whom the pa.s.sion of love burned suddenly, and with a very furious flame indeed; till on one fateful hunting day the amorous couple found themselves "in at the death": they had distanced the field, they were alone. Mr. Sponge secured the brush, and said: