He flew like a dragon fly to the hooded instrument, ducked his head under the hood, lost his own head, it seemed, took on the hooded head of the instrument, _became_ the instrument as it were, so that it now had human arms and legs clothed in a checked suit, and in this metamorphic condition, proceeded with an unaccountable section of the Eleusinian mysteries. So, this was the manner in which one had one’s picture taken! Was that all? Bless you, no! We had but begun! He suddenly turned into a man again, and the instrument degenerated into a mere instrument. We made, I cannot imagine, how many false starts. The index finger would fly up. I would be recommended to watch the little bird I could not see. The old assistant would stand ready to click the instrument. The photographer would count three. So! Now! Off we were, surely! But no! Something was suddenly altogether a mistake. What was the matter? I wish I could tell you. I suppose I must have altered infinitesimally his precious pose. So, _da capo_. Well! Now! There! So! Up would go the index finger. We are off now! No! by my strapped slippers, we are not! Spoiled again! Then he would run his fingers really wildly through his hair. Patience! Reconstruction. I knew I was not to blame. I was healthy and well disposed, and eager to do my part, but he wanted something better than the best. I do not know how long he worked feverishly, but I have still the perfectly good-natured, secure, contented likeness which seems to have resulted--not because of, but in spite of all this frenzy; a baby likeness showing as nothing else in the world could the immeasurable distance between our two worlds, his and mine. I was showing it laughingly, perhaps a little wistfully, to an artist friend of mine the other day. He appeared to be startled almost by its certainty, its poise. “Good Lord, how wise! How _secure_! It is like the Raphael babies! I’ve always thought they _knew_; some knowledge you could not shake.” The mistake is, of course, to limit the observation to the Raphael babies. Of course children of that age _do_ know, but it is a sad mistake to say you cannot shake their knowledge. This I can prove to you, if you are in doubt, by another photograph, taken two years later, when I was of the tenderly advanced age of five. It was no official photograph like the first, but a hasty unofficial matter, an emergency affair, a tintype, and taken in a hurry. And this is its story: