DRAWN AT
A VENTURE

A COLLECTION OF DRAWINGS
BY
FOUGASSE



WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY
A. A. MILNE




METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

First Published in 1922

INTRODUCTION

THERE are various methods of introducing an artist to his public. One of the best is to describe how you saved his life in the Bush in ’82; or he saved yours; and then you go on: “Little did either of us anticipate in those far-off days that Fougasse was destined to become . . .” Another way is to leave Fougasse out altogether, and concentrate, how happily, on your own theories of black-and-white drawing, or politics, or the decline of the churches; after all, an introduction doesn’t last long, and he has the rest of the book to himself. Perhaps, however, it is kinder to keep the last paragraph for him: “Take these little sketches by Fougasse, for instance . . .” and the reader, if he cares to any longer, can then turn over and take them. Left to ourselves, that is the method we should adopt. But the publisher is at our elbow. “This is an introduction,” he says. “For Heaven’s sake introduce the fellow.”

Let us begin, then, by explaining Fougasse’s nationality. I never discuss his drawings with another, but we tell each other how remarkable it is that a Frenchman should have such an understanding of English sport. “Of course,” we say, “in the actual drawing the nationality reveals itself; the Gallic style stands forth unmistakeably; only a Frenchman has just that line. But how amazingly British is the outlook! Was there ever a Frenchman before who understood and loved cricket as this one?” We ask ourselves how the phenomenon is to be explained. The explanation is simple. A fougasse—I quote the dictionary—is a small mine from six to twelve feet underground charged either with powder or loaded shells; and if a British sapper subaltern, severely wounded at Gallipoli, beguiles the weary years of hospital by drawing little pictures and sending them up to Punch, he may as well call himself Fougasse as anything else. Particularly if his real name is Bird, and if a Bird, whose real name is Yeats, is already drawing for Punch. Of course it would have been simpler if they had all stuck to their own names like gentlemen, but it is too late now to do anything about it, and when a genuine M. Fougasse of Paris comes along, he will have to call himself Tomkins. Once the downward path of deceit is trodden, there is seemingly no end to it.

We have our artist, then, Kenneth Bird of Morar, Inverness. When I first met him at the beginning of 1919, he was just out of hospital, swinging slowly along with the aid of a pair of rocking-horse crutches. This was on his annual journey south, for they have the trains in Morar now. Once a year Fougasse makes the great expedition to London, to see what the latest fashions may be, and is often back in Morar again before they have changed to something later. I have seen him each year; in 1920 with two ordinary crutches; in 1921 with two sticks; in 1922 with one stick; perhaps by 1923 he will be playing again the games of which he makes such excellent fun. But, selfishly, we cannot regret the Turkish bullet, which turned what I suspect of being quite an ordinary engineer into such an individual black-and-white draughtsman.

I am really the last person who should be writing this introduction, for all drawing is to me a mystery. When I put two dots, a horizontal line and a vertical line into a circle, the result is undoubtedly a face, but whose, or what expressing, I cannot tell you until afterwards, nor always then. But these mystery men can definitely promise you beforehand that their dot-and-line juggling will represent Contempt or Surprise or Mr. Asquith, just as you want it. It is very strange; and, sometimes I think, not quite fair. However, this is not the place wherein to dwell upon the injustice of it. What I wanted to say was that with Fougasse I feel a little more at ease than usual; we have something in common. Accepting the convention that writers write exclusively with the pen, and that black-and-white artists draw exclusively with the pencil, I should describe Fougasse as more nearly a Brother of the Pen than any of the others. Were I in the Punch office now, I should never begin my weekly contribution until his drawing had turned up, lest it should prove that he had already written it for me; and he, I like to tell myself, would be equally fearful lest that very week I might have got his drawing into type. “The Tragedy of a Trouser,” for instance—it is a whole article. Any wide-awake Trade Union would forbid it.

But it is Fougasse’s golf and cricket articles of which, as a rival practitioner, I should have complained most; in which, Plancus no longer consul, I delight most. Turn to page 31 and you will see all that is to be said on the subject of village cricket. How lucky these draughtsmen are! What a laborious business we others should have made of it! Would any of you have laughed at our wordy description of the fielder in a cloth cap to whom one can run a single? “But one gets in two for trousers tucked into socks”—“stretching it to three for a straw hat”—“and four for a black waistcoat.” Each fielder as drawn here is a joy. Yet there is something more than that; we are not just laughing at them, for they are our friends. We look from one to the other of them, and gradually the smile becomes a little wistful. It was how many years ago? Now the printed page has vanished, and we see again the village green. Straw Hat was the postman. Not quite like that, however, for he wore the official trousers with it, but he moved slowly, being the postman and tired of it, and one ran three to him. Black Waistcoat was the dairy farmer; his the cows which had to be driven off the pitch on a Saturday morning; a mighty underhand bowler, bouncing terribly. Fougasse is wrong here, for his hands could stop anything, and one would never run four to him. I doubt if you would ever run four to a black waistcoat, their hands are so big. Slow in the return of course, but safe, safe.

You may think that you have had enough of War Sketches, but you will be glad to see the historic “Gadgets” again, and perhaps even now “1914-1918” will give you a lump in the throat with your smile, and make you somehow a little more proud. It is so very much England. But, taking the drawings as a whole, I should say that the charm of their humour lies in the fact that they make the very jokes which we should have made for ourselves, if only we had realized that they were jokes. When Mr. Bateman gives us his brilliant life-study of the man who breathed on the glass in the British Museum, we realize that this is an inspiration far outside our range. “However did he think of it?” we say to ourselves in awe. When Mr. Morrow draws us “a little supper-party at the Borgias,” we have to admit sadly that the comedy of a supper-party at the Borgias would never have occurred to us. But when Fougasse describes to us his feelings in the presence of the Wedding Detective, or the conversation of the Club Bore in the library, then we beam upon him delightedly. Why, it’s absolutely true! We’ve noticed it ourselves a hundred times! As we were saying to Jones only yesterday—Alas we flatter ourselves. We saw the pebbles lying there, day after day, and there, for us, they would still be lying. But a humorist picks them up and holds them this way and that. The light shines upon them. See! They are precious stones.

A. A. MILNE

CONTENTS