Among those whom Gainsborough loved best was the man called Wiltshire who carried his pictures to and from London. He was a public "carrier" but would never take any money for his services to the artist, because he loved his work. All he asked was "a little picture"--and he got so many of these, given in purest affection, that he might have gone out of business as a carrier, had he chosen to sell them. Four of those little pictures are now very great ones worth thousands of pounds and known everywhere to fame. They are "The Parish Clerk," "Portrait of Quin," "A Landscape with Cattle," and "The Harvest Waggon." We have a good many stories of Gainsborough's bad manners. The artists of his day tried to treat him with every consideration, but in return he treated them very badly, especially Sir Joshua Reynolds. Reynolds, who was then President of the Academy greatly admired Gainsborough but the latter would not return Sir Joshua's call, and when Reynolds asked him to paint his portrait for him, Gainsborough undertook it thanklessly. Sir Joshua left town for Bath for a time, and when he returned he tried to learn how soon the portrait would be finished, but Gainsborough would not even reply to his inquiry. There seems to have been no reason for this behaviour unless it was jealousy, but it made a most uncomfortable situation between fellow artists. Gainsborough has told some not very pleasing stories about himself, but one of them shows us what a knack he had for seeing the comic side of things, and perhaps for seeing comedy where it never existed. Upon one occasion he was invited to a friend's house where the family were in the habit of assembling for prayers, and he had no sooner got inside, than he began to fear he should laugh, when prayer time came, at the chaplain. In a rush of shyness he fled, leaving his host to look for him, till he stumbled over a servant who said that Mr. Gainsborough had charged him to say he had gone to breakfast at Salisbury. Even respect for the customs of others could not make him control himself. It was through his intimacy with King George's family that his quarrel with the Royal Academy came about. He had painted the three princesses--the Princess Royal, Princesses Augusta and Elizabeth, and these were to be hung at a certain height in Carlton House, but when he sent the first to the Academy he asked it to be specially hung and his request was refused. Then he sent a note as follows: