A powerful practical joke of a double-barrelled kind was played by a Fleet Street artist, and got into the papers of the time. There were two black-and-white artists in the Street of Adventure. One was H. Furniss with an “i”; the other was H. Furness with an “e.” The one was an Irishman; the other was a Yorkshireman. The latter was the perpetrator of the joke. Joseph Biggar, the well-known Parliamentary obstructionist, was so unfortunate as to have been made the defendant in an action for breach of promise of marriage. What was still more unfortunate was that he lost his case, and was cast in heavy damages. Furness (with an “e”) herein saw an opening. He drew a cheque for the amount of the damages incurred, and forwarded it to Jo Biggar in a letter glowing with expressions of sympathy and admiration. Biggar attributed this act of princely generosity to Furniss (with an “i”), and sent to that gentleman an acknowledgment of his great indebtedness. Meanwhile the joker had stopped his cheque at the bank, and Jo Biggar had given the correspondence—the donor’s letter and his own reply—to the Press. Biggar was covered with shame, Furniss (with an “i”) was aroused to indignation, and Furness (with an “e”) had proved himself—as is the nature of furnaces, however spelt—to be very hot stuff. But it was among my theatrical friends that I found the most patient, enterprising, and scientific prosecutors of humour in action. J. L. Toole was very fond of the practical joke. But he did not carry his schemes out on the generous scale that seemed the proper proportions to certain of his colleagues. His jokes were small personal affairs, never calculated to give pain or annoyance, and invariably described in some paper or another. “How _do_ these things get into the papers?” Sothern was a past-master in the fine art of practical joking. Some of his most notorious successes in that line have been narrated in works of biography or autobiography by other men. But I was a witness of two of his efforts in this way which I have never seen described in print. They indicate the time, thought, and pains, which Sothern was always prepared to spend over the elaboration of a practical joke in order that it might eventually be presented complete and perfect. He possessed a true actor’s faith in efficient rehearsal. The breakfasts of Sam Rogers, the banker-poet, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, may have been very interesting reunions; but they could not have been half as amusing as the breakfasts of Sothern given during the closing years of that century. No one was invited to these gatherings who was not either odd or interesting or witty. The conversation was kept up to the mark by a host who could play on the faculties of his guests as a musician on the strings of an instrument.