Not only were they physically fatiguing, but the difficulties of choice, of obtaining what they desired and of refusing what they didn’t desire without undue offence to the artist, taxed the patience of both directors and, I think, Joe’s wit was often needed to turn a dangerous corner. “Good isn’t the word,” he once answered to a sympathiser who asked him what he said when confronted with a thoroughly bad picture; and, although this too transparent form of salve may not really have been uttered, I am told that the kindly chaff which he would sometimes expend upon the shameless offer of a poor painting from a man who knew what he was doing but meant to send his best work to take its chance elsewhere, was such as might not have “gone down” from anyone else but Joe Carr. Yet there were pleasant hours even on these days of weary rounds. In each of the districts visited the directors were sure to count at least one firm friend, anxious to lighten the road; in Kensington it was Burne Jones, who, speaking of his young daughter, wrote on one occasion: “In my wife’s absence, Margaret dispenses middle-class hospitality with a tact and finish worthy of a higher sphere.” In St. John’s Wood it was Alma Tadema--most hospitable of hosts--always ready with a bottle of his best wine and some funny tale uttered in his quaint English, and admirably seconded by his charming wife at the long, narrow table loaded with old Dutch silver and lovely curios. And upon the onerous occasions of the varnishing days when the positions on the line were supposed to be the right of every exhibitor, these and other leaders in the world of art would often “stand by” even when some incensed young gentleman--these were usually young gentlemen--would go the length of removing his picture in a four-wheeler. Many were the humorous incidents that used to be told to me! A favourite and out-spoken assistant was once asked what he thought of the position of a small picture which was being tried above a larger one; to which his reply was: “If you ask me, Sir, I think it looks like a tom-tit on a round of beef.” Apparently the directors thought so too for the picture was removed and hung in a corner, or perhaps in the balcony above the Central Court--a place even less coveted by the ambitious. Little however did _I_ know of these prickly passages, specially at that momentous first opening, when a kind supporter of the new enterprise presented me with a beautiful old brocade dress in which I took my share of receiving the crowds of visitors at the entrance of the Hall: and I don’t think that, when the varnishing day was past, the two directors bothered their heads much about the prickly passages or even about the Press opinions. Joe’s optimism was always irrepressible and when his task at the New Gallery was over, he would turn, on the following day--with something perhaps of relief--to one of the many other sides of his full life. CHAPTER VIII DRAMATIC WORK AND MANAGEMENT