Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1890-05-24

tion. oddly TGcgIMN0
enough, the Sec -
ond was his wife, MARK LEMON.
and the last of these was Punch. He
was more than satirist and more than
humorist. He danced grotesquely
with cap and bells through life-preach.
ing sermons.
"Mark Lemon, editor of Punch" That
Is his cpitaph. 1t is monument as
we'll. He was the Falstaff of literature
rare Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff,
sweet Jack Falstaff-and by some whim-
sical paradox q moral one. There was
nothing of Jack in him but the fine hu-
NOR and the manly heart-the other
half was Christian gentleman instead
of a rakish rapscallion.
And, by the way, few better actors
ever played the role of tho fat knight.
1t was on that famous tour to Edinboro'
and the North that Mark Lemon made
his reputation. He was the head and
front of that amateur offending. A
crowd of journalists, litterateurs, and
Underwriters formed the company. And
they were a merry family. They played
King Henry ".
"We are a promising set of actors"
said Joe Hatton, complacently, at ono
of the rehoarsals.
"Yes, you arc promising enough"
said Lemon, land promising is all right
but why not perform?"
Mark Lemon was handsome man
himself and looked the part of the fat
and handsome knight. lie never made
up for the role. There was no occasion.
Those good Punch dinners had done all
the padding" necessary. He wore his
own hair and beard. He was Fall
staff behind the footlights as we'll as be-
fore.
But this theatrical venture was an
episode, though the old pipe babbles in
terminably about it. Mark Lemons
life centered in the Punch office. Bou-
verie street was his world. Tho Punch
dinner was his weekly oasis. There he
smoked Thackeray's old pipe-a legacy
from his dead friend. There he led tho
chorus that chortled his own jolly song:
why measure all your hopes in gold,
No rope of sand is weaker;
'Tis hard to get tits hard to hold,
Come lad, fill up the beaherl"
"Hast thou not found true friends more true,
And loving ones more loving!"
could but say: "a few, q few;
So keep the liquor moving"
The old pipe grows colder. Half to
itself it murmurs disjointedly of a quiet
old Sussex village-of trooping viii
lagers-of old-time friends and fellow
workers-the country churchyard.
The pipe is out!
The third pipeful and the last for the
night is wearing away and the old pipe
talks indistinctly.
One of those who scattered flowers on
that quiet grave sits in busy Chicago
office-smoking And the pipe no
smokes is the one that Thackeray lit
many times, that dear Mark Lemon
flourished as he told his best stories and
sang his rarest songs. Again it has
new lover.
For Frank Jarvis was bred I'm the
school that made Dickens and Thack-
cray and Douglas Jerrold and Tom Hood
and Mark Lemon. He left an impress
on tho early literary work of Chicago
that many years will not wipe away.
The old pipes wanderings were not
yet at an end. Frank Jarvis fell in with
the unpleasant fashion that humanity
set generations ago. Tho world was so
much the poorer.
There was only ono man in Chicago
worthy to smoke that pipe. 1t was left
to him.
Every one who knows his Chicago as
he should know it knows the man. A
fino English gentleman, a bon-vivant, a
musician, journalist.
"Bless me-" chuckles tho old pipe,
she has pulled those royal mustaches