"With the wisdom of an artist and the news-sense of a Park Row hustler, Mr. Furniss lit a cigarette, and said:
"This remark filled me with terror. Was it right to permit this well-meaning but over-zealous friend of my country, my people and myself to sound the depths of social degradation in the metropolis and lard an otherwise charming book with screed and sketches dragged from the slums? He was likely to mistake Donovan's Lane for Harlem Lane, and Paradise Square for Maddison Square! Any man would be liable to do so after a few days' visit to a strange city. How many of the American birds of passage who flock to London every summer know the distinction between Mitre and Capel Courts? One is the scene of a ghastly Whitechapel murder; the other is the financial center of the Eastern world!
"When, therefore, it was seen to be impossible to dissuade the talented young caricaturist from his blue-glass view of metropolitan society, it seemed necessary to provide for our self-defence. One of the cleverest pen-and-ink artists in America was engaged to accompany the party as a second detective. A flying visit was paid to Mott Street, and the services of High Lung, a distinguished crayon manipulator, recently arrived (by way of Vancouver and the dark of the moon), were secured to make a Chinese-American caricature of the charming but over-curious Englishman.
"Everything worked to a charm. Mr. Furniss went where he intended. He saw all. He made sketches. He visited the shrine of the great Joss. He ate birds' nests and rice. He saw the deadly opium smoked, and 'hit the pipe' a few minutes himself.
"The night came to an end with dawn. Headache destroyed curiosity. Our own faithful, copper-fastened distorter of facial beauty set down in Mr. Furniss's black art what he had seen and did know. Here are the results, H. F. It is to be feared he has imitated your style.
"Bon voyage, master of the quick and the lead! Draw us, if you must; but draw not the long bow.
Quarantined--The Receiver-General of Australia--An Australian Guidebook--A Death Trap--A Death Story--The New Chum--Commercial Confessions--Mad Melbourne--Hydrophobia--Madness--A Land Boom--A Paper Panic--Ruin.
SYDNEY--The Confessions of a Legislator--Federation--Patrick Francis Moran.