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vividly impressed upon his mind. He was struck on the top of his hat by a "fizzing devil" made out of moist powder, which burnt a hole through it. He says that he would rather have this recollection on his mind now, than the "fizzer" on his head at the time. The young artist in embryo was a rare young pugilist at school. He was forced to use his fists, as friction was strong between the Irish and English lads at the school he went to. But he did well in athletic sports, and was never beaten in a hundred yards race. He firmly believes that this early athletic training is responsible for the rapid way in which he does everything to-day—be it walking or talking, eating or working, all is done on the hundred yards principle—to get there first.

He was a spoilt boy—first of all because he was sent to a girls' school, but mainly from a very significant incident which happened at the Wesleyan College School in Dublin—a collegiate establishment from which pupils (not necessarily Wesleyans, for Mr. Furniss is not of that sect) passed to Trinity College—where he obtained all his education. He was not a studious lad. He found the editing, writing, illustrating, publishing, and entire bringing-out of a small journal he founded far more agreeable to his taste than Latin verbs and algebraical problems.

"I was in knickerbockers at the time," he said, "and introduced to the schoolboy public—The Schoolboy's Punch. It sounds strangely prophetic as I think of it now. The entire make-up of it was à la Punch, and it had its cartoon every week. At that time the Davenport Cabinet Trick was all the rage, and the very first cartoon I drew was founded on that. Here is the picture: myself—as a schoolboy—being tied up with ropes depictive of Greek, Latin, Euclid, and other cutting and disagreeable items. I am placed in the cabinet—the school. The head-master, whom I flattered very much in the drawing, opens another cabinet and out steps the young student covered with glory and scholastic honours thick upon him! From that moment my school-master spoiled me. I left school and started work. I got a pound for my first drawing. A. M. Sullivan started a paper in Ireland on very similar lines to Punch. There was a wave in Ireland of better class journalism at this time which had never existed before or since. I slipped in. For some years I drew on wood and engraved my own work. I was given to understand that all black and white men engraved their own efforts, so I offered myself as an apprentice to an engraver.

"He said: 'Don't come as an apprentice. If you will undertake to look after my office, I'll teach you the art of engraving.'"

It meant a hard struggle for young Furniss. He was loaded down with clerical work, but in his own little room, when the day's labours were done, he would sit up till two and three in the morning. There was no quenching his earnestness. Work then with him was a real desire. It is so to-day. To rest is obnoxious to him.

Study of an Irishman.

He worked away. The feeling in Ireland against Englishmen at that time was very strong. Tom Taylor, then the editor of Punch, saw some of his sketches in Dublin, and advised him to go to the West of Ireland to make studies of character. He was in Galway, and he had persuaded a number of Irishmen who were breaking stones to pause in their work