To return to Topaz, he touched up his portraits to suit the taste and vanity of his customers. In this, it must be owned, he did not always succeed. Some of his clients were all beak, and had no focus in them; others could not sit steady for a second, the result was, they figured on the plate with two heads, and a group of hands like Vishnu, the heathen god. They jerked their tails at some fatal moment, rendering them invisible in the photograph. Pelicans thought {170} their beaks too long. Cockatoos complained of the shortness of theirs. Goats said their beards had been tampered with. Boars held that their eyes were too piercing. Squirrels wanted action. Chameleons changing colour; while the donkey thought his portrait incomplete without the sound of his mellifluous voice. Most comical of all—the owl, who had shut his eyes to the sun, maintained that he was represented stone-blind, thus destroying his chief attraction. In the laboratory of Topaz, as in the painter’s studio, might be seen constantly in attendance a troop of young lions, the sons of the aristocracy, who came to loiter away their leisure. They prided themselves in being judges of art, called all the muscles of the face by their anatomical names; and spoke of graceful sweeps, handling of the brush, tooling, modelling, breadth of expression, &c., &c. Under pretext of enjoying the society of the artist, they twitted and laughed at his clients. To the crow, if he showed face at the entrance with his glossy black coat, and gouty, magisterial step, they cried in chorus— “Oh! good morning, Mr. Crow, come in, nothing shows up so well as a good, black coat.” Then they gently reminded him of his adventure with the fox and the stolen cheese. One day a good fellow, a duck, left his reeds and swamps, and came with much ado to the studio, desirous of seeing his image to greater perfection than in his native stream. As soon as he appeared, one of the clique approached and taking off his cap, said— “Ah, sir, you must be a great observer, you constantly move from side to side. What is the news?” No one escaped their sarcasm; many were offended, many more lost their temper, and as for Topaz, he lost some of his best customers. But he really could not afford to offend the lions, as they belonged to good families, and were careful to flatter his vanity; besides, they were by no means bad fellows, when in their generous moods. [Illustration]