Autograph Letter Signed ('F. C. Bernand') from the humorist Sir Francis Cowley Burnand to the illustrator Harry Furniss, lamenting that there will be 'no dinner for the Punch boys' in Christmas week, and discussing an unsuccessful illustration.

2pp., landscape 12mo. Addressed to 'Dear Furniss'. He is glad to hear of Furniss's success: 'Your tour ends after the last dinner but one of the year. No dinner Xmas week! awful that isn't it? When all are feasting no dinner for the Punch boys!!' He hopes Furniss will be 'here with us'. Had Furniss been 'on the spot' Burnand would have got him 'to substitute something for your John Bull picture in almanack which no one (I do not speak of "The Table" but of our best friends outside) comprehends. However thats done & can't be undone; but its as well to bear it in mind so as to know the style of thing to avoid when Xmas comes again'. He reminds Furniss that Christmas is 'a time of "peace & goodwill"', and urges him to 'let byegones be byegones (whether spelt thus or "bygones" - which I don't know) bury the hatchet as the Tomahawk was long ago buried'. The 'Tomahawk' was a a satirical London magazine of the 1870s, and the reference may be to a feud between Furniss and its editor Arthur William a'Beckett (1844-1909), who was to fall on hard times towards the end of his life.