Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/59



EORGE AUGUSTUS SALA—or, as popularity has abbreviated him, "G.A.S."—is one of the merriest men of the nineteenth century. He is literally loaded with fun and good humour. Touch the veteran journalist on his anecdotal trigger and you will live all the happier after receiving a volley. Ask him a question and his answer is—an anecdote. It is his only hobby—to gather them up—and he is a past-master in the art of dispensing them in any sized quantities to meet the requirements of the most susceptible constitution. Mr. Sala and his wife are not favourably inclined towards flats, and infinitely prefer to live at Brighton, where they have a little house, and never lose an opportunity of leaving the darkness and blackness of Victoria-street for the welcome breezes of the Marine Metropolis; yet their little flat is pleasantness itself, and in order to reach it, you are welcome to enter the front door—always conveniently open—of No. 125, ring the bell of the passenger lift, and an obliging youth will immediately elevate you to the third floor. For such is the whereabouts of Sala's flat.

His pictures are so many that he has positively had to fall back on the kitchen walls whereon to hang many a proof engraving and etching, whilst the lower part of the dresser in the same culinary department actually provides a resting-place for china and other ware of rare worth, in place of the customary pots and pans.

The entrance hall is a perfect little menagerie. Here, on shelves artistically draped with crimson