[Illustration: "_The mother gone to buy a skin To wrap the Baby Bunting in._"] [Illustration: RT. HON. "BOBBY" LOW _amused by seeing himself with others in the Ministry represented on the stage at the Court Theatre in a burlesque called the "Happy Land." I sat next him._] [Illustration: MR JUSTICE A. T. LAWRENCE (_A study_).] [Illustration: DANCKWERTS, K.C. (_Study_).] [Illustration: THE LATE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE COCKBURN. (_Sketched in Court during Tichbourne Trial._)] [Illustration: A smile from Nature. (Study.)] [Illustration: HENRY IRVING _as "Shylock._"] Mr. Henry Arthur Jones usually rode to the theatre, and as I found him conducting a rehearsal of the _Bauble Shop_ in riding-kit I sketched him in it with a hunting-crop in one hand and a book of the play in the other, which reminds me of another subject who wished to be painted in "boots and breeches," and turned up at my studio in a pair of the latter that had evidently been worn in earlier days, for they appeared to irk him somewhat round the knees. After he had been standing for a considerable length of time, I asked him to rest, as I always prefer to give my sitters as little trouble and fatigue as possible. But he did not move, and finally when I asked him again he remarked rather ruefully:-- "Either I shall have to go on standing for ever or I shall fall over, for I'm paralysed by these breeches." So I had to treat him like a lay figure and liberate each limb and rub it until the circulation was restored. Another sitter was an undergraduate in training for the 'Varsity boat-race. I have found men of this rowing calibre usually wonderful sitters, being perfectly fit; this particular young man was in excellent form, so much so that he completely outstood me and said when I, at last, begged him to have a rest:-- "Why I can go on standing all day without fatigue!" The following is an amusing but somewhat embarrassing contretemps which befell me at an afternoon party. I was greeted on arrival by my hostess's young and effusive daughter whose father I had just cartooned in _Vanity Fair_ and who introduced me to an old lady, exclaiming:-- "This is Mr. Leslie Ward.... I should say the great Mr. Leslie Ward!" whereupon the old lady raised her lorgnettes and gazed severely through them at me, and then turning to the young lady remarked somewhat ironically, "I think perhaps in future you'd better label your guests." I felt inclined to sink into the floor, especially when I viewed the embarrassment of my young hostess, and then the cold gaze of the lady.... I have often wondered since whether I had caricatured her husband. Artists have not been entirely ignored in _Vanity Fair_; Gustave Doré was a willing victim, and gave me good opportunities of watching him in a studio in London while at work, but eventually I represented him as I first saw him, in dress clothes. I nearly fell over his sketches on the floor, for they were so thickly spread about everywhere.