These two members of the Falstaff company hardly ever conversed, except in the language of the little book, price sixpence, being Mark Lemon's version of Falstaff, in which the fat knight was purified and made wholesome.

"Falstaff was a gentleman," says Mark Lemon, "fallen away, in the general degeneracy of the times, from the path of rectitude; but, nevertheless, a gentleman. He was not a (mentioning an actor

buffoon. Poor old

of considerable reputation) was quite outraged because I would not go down on my face and grovel in the robbery scene.”

"That is the recognised legitimate business," I remark.

"Granted! It is not the only business to which I object, on principle. Like Falstaff, I am fat and growing old, heaven help the wicked! and I might have as great a difficulty in getting up again, being down, as poor Jack had. He was no buffoon."

"An awful liar, though," says Bardolph.

A cowardly knave," says Mistress Quickly, who had been invited to sup with us, having played the Dame to perfection.

"A spendthrift, and one who did not pay his just debts—that five hundred, to wit," says

Shallow.

"His lies were, for the most part, white lies," replies the editor of Punch; "mostly white lies, my masters."

"The buckram men, for example," suggests Bardolph.

"Yes, the men in buckram suits," sayeth our leader. "He saw almost immediately that the Prince knew all: he exaggerated his first fib that he might make the affair the more ridiculous, piling up the fun until that grand climax, ‘By the Lord I knew ye!' And mark how he chaffed the Lord Chief Justice. There is no part of the play that sparkles more with Shakspeare's genius than Falstaff's interview,

with the Chief Justice in the second scene of

the first act. 'To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox.'

66

But he was a hard man; he behaved cruelly to Mistress Quickly," remarks the lady.

"Yes, Dame, he was; but not harder than others. The times were out of joint. He was a gentleman of the period; had he lived in these days he would have been a different man. And then he was so very hard up! But Mistress Quickly loved the rogue for all that. There is nothing to my mind more affecting than her description of Falstaff's death. 'He parted even just between twelve and one, e'en at the turning o' the tide; I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends; he babbled of green fields.'

The thought of this glimpse of Falstaff's mind wandering back to his days of innocency always seemed to impress Mark Le

mon with the correctness of his liberal judgment of Falstaff's character.

On this particular evening the contemplation of the poor knight's death evidently set the critic thinking of others who had gone out with the tide; for when Bardolph and the rest were abed, and the waiter had received a kindly shake of the head in response to the inquiry if we wanted anything else, the editor and actor began to talk of Hood, and Jerrold and Leech.

"Poor Hood," he said; "when he sent me his 'Song of the Shirt,' he accompanied it with a few lines, in which he expressed a fear that it was hardly suitable for Punch, leaving it between my discretion and the waste-basket.”

"It created a profound sensation," I suggested.

"Yes; we received letters from all parts of The sale of the number was

the country.

enormous, I believe."

"Yet, to be fully appreciated, he had to do one thing, as Douglas Jerrold puts it in his preface to 'Cakes and Ale:' that one thing was-to die."

"It is generally so," he replied; "though, for that matter, Leech and Thackeray were appreciated during their lives; and Dickens, there is success for you! I am glad Dickens sent me that kind note and message the other day."

There had been an estrangement between Charles Dickens and Mark Lemon, which the great master of fiction had brought to an end by some kindly message when the Editor of Punch was announced as Falstaff. In early life, Mark Lemon and Dickens were intimate friends and neighbours. They were both members of that amateur company which played, years ago, for the benefit of the Guild of

Literature and Art.

The Editor of Punch had

walked with Dickens, more than once, to scenes