Page:Pen And Pencil Sketches - Volume I.djvu/57

Rh a Mathews by birth, a chatty, lively old lady, with a sense of humour and plenty of anecdote, and his only son, Henry S. Leigh (whom I first knew as a Bluecoat-boy), who had much of his fathers talent for repartee, and was a good and witty versifier. His “Carols of Cockayne” were well known to the last, if not to the present generation. Artists lived far simpler lives forty years ago, and the fare on these evenings consisted of little more than bread and cheese with table-beer, and a “smiler” or “refresher” of gin and water, with the smoke after supper. Wit presided at the board and made brilliant the banquet. Leigh was an admirable talker rather than a conversationalist, but we were all willing listeners. When not in the vein for discourse, cards were introduced, and old-fashioned round games played, or table-turn- ing, for which Leigh had lately developed a craze, would be resorted to.

The more prominent figures whom I used to meet at these symposia were T.J. Heatherley, grave of aspect but quietly humorous ; John Sparkes, with whom I first became acquainted when drawing at the British Museum, now headmaster at South Kensington. Leigh called us Box and Cox, from the similarity of our names. In addition were J.F. Slinger, lately one of the masters at the Slade School, University College, a pianist who