After a few enquiries I closed with his offer of one and sixpence per hour (always very generously interpreted), and promised to come up to his house as soon as I had closed the shop, or say about 10.30 P.M. I went, and laid the foundation of a friendship that still endures, the artist in question having illustrated several of my books and done so, in my poor opinion, better than any other living artist could have done. But I am getting on too fast. It must be remembered that as yet I had no experience of "modelling," knew absolutely nothing of what it meant to stand for half an hour in one position, and in parenthesis I may say that I never learned well. But I did my best, and my employer was pleased to say that my intelligent appreciation of what he wanted was much more useful to him than would have been the trained immobility of any professional model. But oh! how I suffered. I thought I knew what hard work, what endurance was. I got a severe shock. In justice to myself I must ask my readers to remember that I had been up since 6 A.M., and it was now nearly midnight, and that even if I had not been using my thews and sinews all that time I had been up and about. Anyhow I know that after striking an attitude which satisfied my employer and maintaining it for say seven or eight minutes, I felt as if I was in some infernal torture chamber, and though very anxious to _earn_ my money and to win approval I had to give in. But my employer was kindness itself, and though naturally intensely anxious to carry out his ideas, he never took the slightest advantage of my position, or insisted upon any pound of flesh. So far from that, and I cannot tell what it meant to me then, as soon as my time was up I was invited to a good supper, which his charming wife had prepared, and at which I was made to feel a welcome guest, with no thought of that hardly earned eighteen pence in the background. How much this kindly intercourse helped me I have no means of knowing, but the impression it made upon me at the time is no keener than the sense I have now of how kind it was; and I have been an honoured guest in that friend's house for the last ten years.