Page:Pen And Pencil Sketches - Volume I.djvu/180

Rh another, saying, “Why, there's no image on this." “No image on it, ain’t there?” says he, giving me another, and jumping on his monkey-board—“You’re a bloomin’ image, you are! Drive on, Bill!” I told this little episode to Keene. He laughed, but did not see his way to make a Punch drawing of it.

Charles Keene had some odd little habits. When dining at the Arts Club or at any public resort, he objected to conversation, and took no part in it ; but would prop his newspaper or book against the water-bottle and read as he ate. He never considered his breakfast complete without a fruit tart — apple for choice. At the Arts he would have his cup of after-dinner coffee placed on the hob till it was nearly boiling, when he sipped it with gusto as he smoked his seventeenth-century “pipe of dottles,” or, failing dottles, tobacco of pro- digious strength. Of other beverages, tea, water, or beer, he would never pour out any greater quan- tity than he could drink at one time. He had peculiarities in his dress. I never saw him in a great-coat, however cold the weather ; he would often wear a Scotch cap ; he was generally clad in a “suit of dittos,” and nearly always carried a small wallet slung over his shoulders, whether walking in London streets or going to visit at a country-house. In this wallet he managed, in some