rama of the funeral of the Duke of Wellington. Alkin did the horses, and Sala the hundreds of figures. They worked at it for six months, but the fumes of the acid acting on the steel plates so injured Sala's normally weak eyes that he was compelled in infinite degradation of spirit to give up the craft he so dearly loved—otherwise he would have gone blind. He still retains the needles he worked with, and the very paperweight to be seen on his study table is a copperplate on which he had worked more than forty years ago.
Mr. Sala's writing table.
From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
"In 1850," continued the journalist, "I renewed my acquaintance with Dickens. I had written an article called 'The Key of the Street' for Household Words. From 1850 to 1856 I made £300 a year out of Dickens's paper. I did a little in the dramatic line with a dear, dead brother of mine, Charles. I wrote a panto. called 'Harlequin Billie Taylor,' under Charles Kean's management, receiving £100 for the opening and £5 a piece for the comic scenes. Then I did a translation of 'The Corsican Brothers' for the Surrey Theatre, and got a guinea a night for it. It ran 150 nights. Many other pieces followed, one of which was a burlesque in 1869 at the Gaiety, called 'Watt Tyler, M.P.,' in which Toole played the titular part. I was successful enough, though the late John Oxenford, in a criticism in The Times, said that my plays were evidently the production of a novice in theatrical matters!' Possibly Oxenford had never heard of the 15s. a week engagement at the Princess's.
"In 1856 I went to Russia for Dickens. We had a row about the travelling expenses, so I went on to The Illustrated Times. On the staff were James Hannay, Fred and James Greenwood, Sutherland Edwards, Edmund Yates, Edward Draper—a solicitor, who did the law and crime—and Old White, the doorkeeper of the House of Commons, who used to divulge the secrets of the House! My turning-point, however, came a year later, when the proprietors of The Daily Telegraph, then a young paper, sent for me. I was paid two guineas a leader, often writing two for three guineas. Since then I have been all over the world—in times of peace, war, and revolution. I have often been chaffed because I once said, in the preface of a book, that the proprietors of The Daily Telegraph gave me 'the wages of an ambassador and the treatment of a gentleman.' That which I stated was the precise and literal fact. Litigating journalists often have proposed to subpœna me with a view to testifying as to the custom and law in journalism. My answer invariably is, 'I can give no kind of testimony as to law or custom, inasmuch as I have never had any written engagement with The Daily Telegraph, who can dismiss me, or I could leave them, to-morrow. Their arrangements with me, both as regards home service and foreign missions, have always been of the friendliest and happiest character."
A fresh sample from a box of the choicest Havanahs having been lit, the clouds of smoke from the weed gave rise to many a merry recollection, both of a personal character and also associated with people whom Mr. Sala has met. The day I spent
