Having already studied the Viscount Tadasa Hayashi, a distinguished Japanese Minister at the court of St. James', and wishing to depict him in evening dress I persuaded him to come to my studio and to bring with him his star and ribbon. With the characteristic courtesy of the best of his race he appeared most good-naturedly in the early morning, dressed as though he were going to an evening reception, and thoroughly entered into the spirit of his portrait and my work. Among the large number of Ministers and Ambassadors I have depicted, I may mention the names of Counts Munster, Paul Metternich, Mensdorff, Messrs. Choate, Bayard, Hay and Whitelaw Reid, and last but not least Count Benckendorff. The latter (whom I have frequently had the pleasure of meeting at the Beefsteak Club) amused me greatly when he came to my studio by saying, "It is a simple task you have before you, you have only to draw an egg--a nose--and an eyeglass and it is done." CHAPTER XIV MUSICIANS--AUTHORS--ACTORS AND ARTISTS Wagner.--Richter.--Dan Godfrey.--Arthur Cecil.--Sir Frederick Bridge and bombs.--W. S. Penley.--Sir Herbert Tree.--Max Beerbohm.--Mr. and Mrs. Kendal.--Henry Kemble.--Sir Edgar Boehm.--George Du Maurier.--Rudyard Kipling.--Alfred Austin. --William Black.--Thomas Hardy.--W. E. Henley.--Egerton Castle. --Samuel Smiles.--Farren.--Sir Squire and Lady Bancroft.--Dion Boucicault and his wife.--Sir Charles Wyndham.--Leo Trevor.-- Cyril Maude.--William Gillette.--The late Dion Boucicault.-- Arthur Bourchier.--Allan Aynesworth.--Charlie Hawtrey.--The Grossmiths.--H. B. Irving.--W. L. Courtney.--Willie Elliot.-- "Beau Little."--Henry Arthur Jones.--Gustave Doré.--J. MacNeil Whistler.--Walter Crane.--F. C. G.--Lady Ashburton and her forgetfulness. I was a privileged member of a select audience at a rehearsal in 1877 at the Albert Hall with the intention of studying Wagner and his eccentricities, while he was conducting one of his own operas, therefore, I was not as surprised as I might have been when I observed him waving his baton and growing more and more excited, dancing on and off his stool, until finally losing his head he grew very angry with everything and everybody, and gave up evidently in fear of one of those nervous attacks to which he was subject. Richter then took the baton and conducted magnificently. Under very different circumstances I studied Dan Godfrey the bandmaster, a very different type of musician, when he had just been promoted to the rank of lieutenant. An officer on guard invited me to breakfast after I had watched him conduct the band in the quadrangle of St. James' Palace, to enable me to examine his features more clearly.