"MR PUNCH."

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18463, 18 August 1925, Page 8

"MR PUNCH."

MAKING OP A JOKE. OFTEN LABORIOUS. (SFECIAIi TO "THE PEESS.") AUCKLAND, August 17. "Mr Punch" has sent as a representative to the Conference of the Empire Press Union Mr A. P. Herbert, a popular writer in the columns of Britain's best-known weekly. When an interviewer sought him out on the Aorangi last evening, he found him deeply absorbed in arranging the places for a private dinner party on j board. Each card bore a dreadfully bad sketch. He explained that he had not, so far, learned to sketch, but was persevering. Mr Herbert is one of tho youngest members of the staff of "Mr Punch" (it was remarked that he always said and Jlr Charles L. Graves is the oldest. An enquiry was made about the methods of "Mr Punch," and whether his "learned staff of clerks" got as much fun out of the paper as the rest of the British world. Solemn Conclaves. He replied that the weekly cabinet meeting held to decide what tho cartoon should be was the most solemn affair in Great Britain. "And," he said, "if it has anything to do with tho Dominions we aro doubly solemn, because we are scared about making mistakes. Every aspect of the subject is discussed and tho title written beiore tho artist begins." Mr Herbert was reminded of ono of his humorous stories about a wonderful cheque crossed und recrossed and covered with every kind of devico for preventing payment. It ran something in this vein: "Pay So-and-so (siuk him) the sum of six guineas (and no more), etc." Tho real joke of tho thing is that tho actual enequo that illustrated tho story was presented at a bank.