While Dr. Walker, Headmaster of St. Paul's, was posing to me in cap and gown, he puffed a huge cigar, and I asked him if he smoked when he was interviewing his boys. "Oh yes," he replied, "not in class of course, but always in my study, even when the boys are there. I smoke when the boys happen to come in; as you see, a good big one, too!" For many years, most of my time was employed either in making portraits, stalking a possible caricature, or travelling to the most likely or unlikely places to pursue a "wanted" subject for _Vanity Fair_. My work greatly extended my list of acquaintances, and often I found business and pleasure strangely bound together in one's daily life and occupation, and sometimes a little incongruously. On one occasion I was due to stay with my old friends Mr. and Mrs. George Fox (now Mrs. Dashwood) in order to study the Bishop of Lichfield with a view to making a drawing of him. The night before I was the guest at the never-to-be-forgotten supper given in honour of Jan Van Beers, the Belgian artist, an exhibition of whose remarkable work at one of the Bond Street galleries was just then arousing great interest. Van Beers was a delightful man and a clever artist, but although he could originate and portray the most extraordinary ideas, it is not by the weird and eccentric creations, but by his light and humorous work, that he is still remembered. When I was talking of him with Sir Alma Tadema, he remarked that it was a pity such unusual talent should be thrown away on such frivolous and unworthy subjects. The suggestion of the supper came in the first place, from Sir John Aird, a patron of Van Beers'; and, as Sir John wished it to be a unique entertainment, he felt he could not do better than leave its arrangement to the originality of Van Beers himself. Van Beers called on me some little time before the date, and asked me if I could collect a number of both my own and Pellegrini's caricatures, including those of several of the expected guests, so that slides might be made from them to throw upon a sheet with the aid of a lantern; and, after some difficulty, I found the right people to do the work.