



Produced by Punch, or the London Charivari, Malcolm Farmer,
Nigel Blower and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdp.net





PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 93.



October 29th, 1887.




QUITE A LITTLE HOLIDAY.

EXTRACT FROM A GRAND OLD DIARY. MONDAY, OCT. 17.

Self, wife, and HERBERT started early to escape our kind-hearted,
clear-headed admirers; so early, that I scarcely had time before
leaving to write thirty post-cards, seventy-six pages of notes for
my next magazine article, and to cut down half-a-dozen trees. Train
announced to leave Chester at 10:30, but got off at the hour.
This little joke (WATKIN'S notion) caused much amusement. Through
opera-glasses we could see bands of music, deputations, &c.,
constantly coming to the railway-stations to meet our train after
it had passed. Too bad! However, to prevent disappointment, and as
CHAMBERLAIN has been imitating me and vulgarised my original idea, I
knocked off some speeches, in pencil, and HERBERT threw them out of
the window as fast as I could write them. So far as we could make out
with a telescope, some of them reached their destination, and seemed
to be well received.

[Illustration: Master Willie Gladstone "really enjoying, and in some
measure appreciating and understanding," our Mr. Agnew's lectures on
Art.

_Vide Times Report, Oct. 18._]

Awfully pleased to meet Mr. WILLIAM AGNEW at Manchester. Odd
coincidence of Christian names. I shall speak of him and allude to him
as "The Other WILLIAM." He promised to keep by me, and show me all the
pictures worth seeing.

"T'Other WILLIAM," said I, "you are very good. As you know, I take a
great and sincere interest in pictures and works of Art, although I
know very little about them." T'Other WILLIAM protested. "No, T'Other
WILLIAM, I am right. You have been the means of providing me with
a commodity most difficult of all others to procure if you do not
possess it yourself--that is to say, you have provided me with
brains." Further protests from T'Other One. "No, T'Other WILLIAM,
hear me out; for you know in all cases where a judgment has had to be
passed upon works of Art, I have been accustomed to refer a great deal
to you, and lean upon you, because you have been constantly the means
of enabling me really to see, and really to enjoy, and in some measure
to appreciate and understand, all that you have shown to me."

I was so pleased with this little speech that I made HERBERT take it
down as I repeated it to him privately when T'Other was looking in
another direction. When I brought it out afterwards, at luncheon in
the Palm-house, it went wonderfully. So it should, because I felt
every word of it. T'Other WILLIAM is one of the kindest and most
courteous of my friends.

I was very pleased with the Exhibition, although perhaps (I am not
certain of this) I might have seen it better had not about four
thousand visitors followed our little party everywhere, cheering
vociferously