PHIL MAY 283 



He replied that they were done by a boy about nineteen 

 years old named 



PHIL MAY; 



only, of course, he did not accentuate the name at that time. 



I asked him to go at once and ascertain if this " boy " 

 could do a cartoon very quickly representing all the 

 principal characters of the moment. In no long time I 

 had the answer in the affirmative, and met Phil May for 

 the first time. He was a lean, cadaverous-looking youth, 

 with close-cropped, very dark hair, and eyes that looked 

 through you like gimlets. If ever there was the fire of 

 genius in any eyes, it was there in Phil May's, and whatever 

 mistakes I have made in my life I made none that time, 

 for I knew right off that I had found something quite 

 abnormally excellent. 



Well, he produced the original of the cartoon within 

 forty-eight hours of that moment when I first saw him, 

 and it was published in our Christmas Number of 1883. 

 That, with black and white sketches in the same number, 

 is the first work of Phil May's ever published by a London 

 paper ; and I think I have some reason to regard myself 

 as a world's benefactor in having discovered him and 

 given him that start. 



He was at a low ebb at the time I mention, and might 

 not have lived to prove the power that was in him. 



Poor Phil ! He has been greatly misunderstood, in a 

 personal sense. Most people will tell you he was a 

 drunkard, but I, who knew him very well indeed, can 

 declare with truth that he was nothing of the sort. He 

 was a convivial soul, liable to exceed when in congenial 

 company, but never drinking for drink's sake, and there 

 is a great distinction here. 



Phil May did four full-page drawings and a half-page 

 one for that Christmas Number, besides the big cartoon, 

 so the speed of his work can be imagined. I have one of 

 the originals now, and it is doubtless valuable. 



For three years from that time Phil May worked for 



