The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1890-05-31

ton. oddly EEAT/MIS
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 lifo-preach.
ing sermons.
"Mark Lemon, editor of Punch" That
is his epitaph. 1t is a monument as
well. He was the Falstaff of literature
rare Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff,
sweet Jack Falstaff-and by some whim.
steal paradox moral one. There was
nothing of Jack in him but the fine hui
NOR and the manly heart-tho 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 Lomon made
his reputation. He was tho head and
front of that amateur offending. A
crowd of journalists, litterateurs, and
Underwriters formed the company. And
they were merry family. They played
King Henry ".
eve are promising set of actors"
said Joe Hatton, complacently, at ono
of the rehearsals.
Eyes, you are promising enough"
said Lemon, land promising is all right
but why not performs"
Mark Lemon was a handsome man
himself ard looked the part of the fat
and handsome knight. lie never made
I'D 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 well 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 the
chorus that chortled his own jolly song:
why measure all your hopes in gold,
No rope of sand is weaker;
'Tis hard to get, its hard to hold,
Come lad, fill up the bealker!"
"Hast thou not found true friends more true,
And loving ones more loving?"
could but say: "A few, 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
Understanding. And the pipe he
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
found a new owner; more than that-a
new lover.
For Frank Jarvis was bred in the
school that made Dickens and Thack-
cray end Douglas Jerrold and Tom Hood
and Mark Lemon. He left an impress
on the early literary work of Chicago
that many years will not wipo away.
Tho old pipes wanderings were not
vet at an end. Frank Jarvis fell in with
the unpleasant fashion that humanity
set generations ago. The world was SO
much the poorer.
There was only one man in Chicago
worthy to smoke that pipe. 1t was left
| to him.
Every ono who knows his Chicago as
he should know it knows the man. A
fine English gentleman, a bon-vivant, a
musician, journalist.
"Bless me-" chuckles tho old pipe,
she has pulled those royal mustaches