Tompkyns writes Henrietta on the stands under two hearts transfixed by
an arrow, and his wife, whose name is Matilda, catches him in the act.
An old gentleman, maddened by a bluebottle, smashes all his furniture
and breaks every window-pane but one--where the bluebottle is. And in
all these scenes one does not know which is the most irresistible, the
most inimitable--the mere drollery or the dramatic truth of gesture
and facial expression.

The way in which every-day people really behave in absurd situations
and under comically trying circumstances is quite funny enough for
him; and if he exaggerates a little and goes beyond the absolute prose
of life in the direction of caricature, he never deviates a
hair's-breadth from the groove human nature has laid down. There is
exaggeration, but no distortion. The most wildly funny people are low
comedians of the highest order, whose fun is never forced and never
fails; they found themselves on fact, and only burlesque what they
have seen in actual life--they never evolve their fun from the depths
of their inner consciousness; and in this naturalness, for me, lies
the greatness of Leech. There is nearly always a tenderness in the
laughter he excites, born of the touch of nature that makes the whole
world kin!

[Illustration: A TOLERABLY BROAD HINT

"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir, but you didn't say as we were to pull up
anywhere, did you, sir?"--_Punch_, 1859.]

Where most of all he gives us a sense of the exuberant joyousness and
buoyancy of life is in the sketches of the seaside--the newly