take back to England for me. On my return, some time later, I did not find the package, and made inquiries for the purser. He had changed ships and disappeared entirely. Many years passed, when one day a friend, visiting my studio, said: “‘By the way, I saw some marines by you in the oddest place you can imagine.’ “‘Where?’ I asked, amazed. “‘I happened in the room of an old fellow who had once been a purser on a South American ship, and while talking with him saw tacked up on the wall several sketches which I recognized as yours. I looked at them closely, and asked the fellow where he got them. “‘“Oh, these things,” he said; “why, a chap who went out with us once painted them on board, off-hand like, and gave them to me. Don’t amount to much, do they?” “‘“Why, man, they are by Whistler.” “‘“Whistler,” he said, blankly. “Who’s Whistler?” “‘“Why, Whistler the artist,--the great painter.” “‘“Whistler, Whistler. I believe that was his name. But that chap warn’t no painter. He was just a swell who went out with the captain; he thought he could paint some, and gave me those things when we got to Valparaiso. No, I don’t care to let them go,--for, somehow or other, they look more like the sea than real pictures.”’” Whistler made several attempts to find these sketches, but without success. As illustrating his facility of execution when time pressed, he painted the “Crepuscule in Flesh Color and Green,” which is a large canvas and one of his best things, at a single sitting, having prepared his colors in advance of the chosen hour. He could paint with the greatest rapidity when out-of-doors and it was important to catch certain effects of light and color. In 1894 he exhibited in Paris three small marines which were marvels of clearness, force, and precision; he had painted them in a few hours while in a small boat, which the boatman steadied against the waves as best he could. He placed the canvas against the seat in front of him and worked away direct from nature. _II_ _A Family of Soldiers--Grandfather founded Chicago--Birth--St. Petersburg--West Point--Coast Survey--His Military Spirit._ He came of a race of fighters. The family is found towards the end of the fifteenth century in Oxfordshire, at Goring and Whitechurch on the Thames; one branch was connected with the Websters of Battle-Abbey, and descendants still live in the vicinity; another branch is in Essex, and from this sprang Dr. Daniel Whistler, President of the College of Physicians in London in the time of Charles the Second, and described as “a quaint gentleman of rare humor,” and frequently mentioned in “Pepys’s Diary.”