When I think of all the good stories I have missed when I have been studying these really humorous people, I regret that my attention must be centred on my work regardless of the delightful personalities which sometimes it has been my good fortune to meet. I should like to be able to wind up my sitters like mechanical toys, to be amusing to order. What a lot of trouble it would save! A clever amateur caricaturist once wanted me to paint his portrait, and during his sittings gave me his views upon caricature. He informed me that he had no compunction whatever in doing a caricature upon the physical defects of his subjects, and that if, for instance, a man had ... well ... a decidedly large stomach, he would not hesitate to increase it. After several sittings I made one of the best drawings and characteristic portraits I have ever done, as he appealed to me as a subject, for he was individual in his dress, and his hat had a character which is rare nowadays. But during the progress of the work, he was self-conscious and awkward, which is a result curious in a man who had a clever gift of caricature, himself. However, I did not exaggerate my work to the extent of producing a caricature, and gave him more credit than to expect me to flatter him. But it seemed that I expressed his bulk more truthfully than was tactful, for it appeared he had undergone a dieting process and considered himself quite sylph-like in consequence. When the drawing was in the hands of the lithographers I went down to see the proof, and to my surprise this man turned up. He appeared to be very friendly, shook hands, and expressed the usual polite banalities. I was a trifle puzzled, but I heard afterwards that he went to the office the next day with his lawyer to look at the drawing, and said to him:-- "Don't you consider this to be a most offensive caricature of me?" (He imagined I was intending to insult him.) This resulted in publication being forbidden, whereupon the lithographers informed him that the drawing was already finished, and all the expense of reproduction incurred. He accordingly paid what was necessary, and it was never published, so I heard no more of the matter. Some time after I met his medical adviser, whom I told of this extraordinary hallucination as to my intentions. He appeared amused. "Oh!" he said, "he is really a very good fellow; but it's been a mania with him to reduce his stomach, and he was under the impression that he'd succeeded."