_Jan_. 17, 1866. "Du Maurier tells of the gas blow-up at his 91 Great Russell Street on Boxing-day. Girl dressing in the shop for Hairdressers' Ball--turned on two burners and lit one and left it burning. Du Maurier and wife dressing on top floor--bang! like a hundred pounder, and then rattle--smash--crash. 'O! the children!' 'D--n it! They're all right!' first time he ever swore before his wife. Sister tried to jump from window, but Armstrong held her back. Baby crowing in his arms at the fun as he came downstairs. The nursemaids had run away of course. Lucky no one on the stairs, or they'd have been killed." _April_ 4, 1866. "In reference to a Ball on the Haymarket stage--'Would you like to go?' said S.B. to du Maurier. But du Maurier's dancing days are over--only cares for dinners now! Fancy the old fogydom of thirty!" _November_ 7, 1868. "Du Maurier cut down to five cigarettes a day, resolves to ride daily and live frugally: frightened by his eye this summer!!" _February_ 24, 1868. "Tenniel has almost given up smoking! Used to smoke an ounce a day. Can eat a better breakfast now. Nearly all our _Punch_ folk smoke less. Tom Taylor has given up cigars and only takes a pipe occasionally. Du Maurier takes cigarettes four a day in lieu of forty. H.S. never smokes at all after dinner. Only Keene and Mark and Shirley stick to their tobacco." § 10 Sir Francis Burnand, till recently the distinguished Editor of _Punch_, was du Maurier's senior on the paper by a year or two. He has very kindly sent the writer the following impression of the artist: "That he was beloved as a cheery, witty _confrère_, goes without saying. Rarely did he mix himself up with politics in any shape or form. I doubt if he ever gave us any assistance in devising a political cartoon. What his politics were I am unable to say, and I do not think he troubled himself about the matter. In 'the old days' he delighted in chaffing Horace Mayhew, with whom he exchanged 'slang' in French. With the jovial proprietor, William Bradbury, he was always on the best of terms of friendly nonsense, being invariably his left-hand neighbour at 'The Table.' He was a genuine Bohemian of the artistic fraternity (as given in his _Trilby_) with the true polish of an English gentleman, of the kindest disposition, and of the warmest heart. All who knew him well loved him, and none missed him more than his fellow-workers on _Punch_." "His religion," Sir Francis volunteered in a further note, "as that of the majority of his French _confrères_, you will find it in the artistic sketches of the men and women in _La Bohème_" "His guardian angel, humanly and socially, was his wife."