À BECKETT are playing at battledore and shuttlecock, and DOUGLAS
JERROLD is having a solitary game of skittles, the 'pins' being the
CZAR of RUSSIA, &c. SHIRLEY BROOKS, MAYHEW, and TOM TAYLOR are playing
at Leapfrog, TOM TAYLOR 'overing' MAYHEW, whilst SHIRLEY BROOKS is
following up. In the background JOHN TENNIEL is sketching the Good
Knight _Punchius_ upon a wall, whilst in the immediate foreground JOHN
LEECH, upon a hobby-horse, is leaping over an easel. These were the
chief of my 'Young Men' at this time. In front of the tent are two
gentlemen, one in a black, the other in a white, hat. The first is
WILLIAM BRADBURY, the second is 'Pater' EVANS, our 'proprietors and
friends' of that day.

"In 1856 an obituary notice showed that the Table had experienced
one of its earliest losses, that of GILBERT ABBOTT À BECKETT. And on
June 8th, in the following year, the boding black border appeared 'In
Memoriam' of DOUGLAS JERROLD. Ah, me, Mr. ANNO DOMINI, the jingling
of the cap-and-bells, howsoever merrily it may sound, is perforce
interrupted now and again by the chiming of a bell of deeper note and
sadder tone.

"Volume XXXIX. for 1860 saw the artistic advent of the Society
Satirist of the Victorian Era, GEORGE DU MAURIER; and in Volume XLIV.
for the year 1863, the presence of another 'New Boy' at my Table, was
evidenced by the appearance of the burlesque London-Journalish Novel,
'Mokeanna,' in which FRANCIS COWLEY BURNAND parodied the 'Penny
Dreadful.'

"The very first page of my Volume for 1864, Mr. ANNO DOMINI, recorded
a great, a grievous, an irreparable loss to me and to the world.
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, the greatest of my contributors, had gone