DRAWN AT A VENTURE DRAWN AT A VENTURE A COLLECTION OF DRAWINGS BY FOUGASSE WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY A. A. MILNE METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON _First Published in 1922_ INTRODUCTION THERE are various methods of introducing an artist to his public. One of the best is to describe how you saved his life in the Bush in '82; or he saved yours; and then you go on: "Little did either of us anticipate in those far-off days that Fougasse was destined to become...." Another way is to leave Fougasse out altogether, and concentrate, how happily, on your own theories of black-and-white drawing, or politics, or the decline of the churches; after all, an introduction doesn't last long, and he has the rest of the book to himself. Perhaps, however, it is kinder to keep the last paragraph for him: "Take these little sketches by Fougasse, for instance...." and the reader, if he cares to any longer, can then turn over and take them. Left to ourselves, that is the method we should adopt. But the publisher is at our elbow. "This is an introduction," he says. "For Heaven's sake introduce the fellow." Let us begin, then, by explaining Fougasse's nationality. I never discuss his drawings with another, but we tell each other how remarkable it is that a Frenchman should have such an understanding of English sport. "Of course," we say, "in the actual drawing the nationality reveals itself; the Gallic style stands forth unmistakeably; only a Frenchman has just that line. But how amazingly British is the outlook! Was there ever a Frenchman before who understood and loved cricket as this one?" We ask ourselves how the phenomenon is to be explained. The explanation is simple. A fougasse--I quote the dictionary--is a small mine from six to twelve feet underground charged either with powder or loaded shells; and if a British sapper subaltern, severely wounded at Gallipoli, beguiles the weary years of hospital by drawing little pictures and sending them up to _Punch_, he may as well call himself Fougasse as anything else. Particularly if his real name is Bird, and if a Bird, whose real name is Yeats, is already drawing for _Punch_. Of course it would have been simpler if they had all stuck to their own names like gentlemen, but it is too late now to do anything about it, and when a genuine M. Fougasse of Paris comes along, he will have to call himself Tomkins. Once the downward path of deceit is trodden, there is seemingly no end to it.