The first representative of Mr. Punch with whom I came into contact was the late Tom Taylor, at that period the tenant of the editorial chair. To this meeting I have referred on a previous page, when I mentioned that Mr. Taylor had just returned from the wilds of Connemara and strongly advised me to make some explorations in that little-known district for the purpose of making sketches of the "genus _homo_ indigenous to the soil," which I did a week or so prior to my setting foot in the busy haunt of men on murky Thames. Tom Taylor was, I believe, one of the best of men, and the possessor of one of the kindest hearts; but although he certainly professed to take an interest in me (probably owing to the fact that it was to a relative of mine that he was indebted for his first introduction to literature), the fact remains that whenever I sent him a sketch I used to receive one of his extraordinary hieroglyphical missives supposed to be a note courteously declining my efforts, notwithstanding that I was often flattered although not enriched by subsequently seeing the subjects of them appear redrawn under another name in the pages of _Punch_. It was not until Tom Taylor had passed away that Mr. Punch would deign to give me a chance. I had then been seven years in London hard at work for the leading magazines and illustrated papers, and I may truly say that my work was the only introduction I ever had to Mr. Burnand. [Illustration: Age 26, WHEN I FIRST WORKED FOR PUNCH. [_From a Photo by C. Watkins._]] When I first entered the goal of my boyish ambition--that is to say, the editorial sanctum of Mr. Punch--I had never met the gentleman who for a number of years afterwards was destined to be my chief, and I fully expected to see the editor turn round and receive me with that look of irrepressible humour and in that habitually jocose style which I had so often heard described. I looked in vain for the geniality in the editor's glance, and there was a remarkably complete absence of the jocose in the sharp, irritable words which he addressed to me. "Really," said he, "this is too bad! I wrote to you to meet me at the Surrey Theatre last night, and you never turned up. We go to press to-day, and the sketches are not even made." "I don't quite understand you," I replied, "for I never heard from you in my life, and I don't think that you ever saw me before." "But surely you are Mr. ----?" (a contributor who had been drawing for _Punch_ for some weeks). "Are you not?" "No," I said. "My name is Furniss, and I understood that you wanted to see me." [Illustration: MY FIRST MEETING WITH THE EDITOR OF _PUNCH_.] This was in 1880, and from that period up to the time of my resignation from the staff of _Punch_ I certainly do not think that I have ever seen Burnand's face assume such a threatening and offended expression as it wore that day.