A bargain had been struck that if _Charles I_ succeeded, Wills should write _Cromwell_ for Mr. Coleman. _Charles I_ proved a great success at the Lyceum, but _Cromwell_ was a comparative failure at the Queen’s. I come now to the reason of Mr. Coleman’s request for a waxen model of the King. He said he wanted it to repose in the coffin on the stage to stimulate the imagination of the actor, Mr. Rignold, when rendering the long oration delivered by Cromwell in the presence of the dead monarch. The model was furnished with every detail, even to the clothing in which the body was attired. I was afterwards told that only the manager, the actor, and my father were aware of the realistic plan that had been devised to accentuate an actor’s eloquence. CHAPTER XXXVI Literary sitters--George R. Sims’s impromptu--His ordeal in the Chamber of Horrors--George Augustus Sala’s masterpiece. Mr. G. R. Sims was a cheery, entertaining sitter; not, perhaps, what most artists would consider a helpful one. His active mind busied itself with every object of interest around him. He would know all about them, and tell each off with some droll quip or whimsical jest. I have spent many a bright hour with “Dagonet”--yes, even including those spent with him in the Chamber of Horrors. I once chanced to have a book of his (the _Dagonet Ballads_) in my hand when he came into my studio, and I asked him to sign his name in it. Without a moment’s hesitation he wrote: DEAR TUSSAUD, I’m a model man. You’re a modeller. Yours truly, G. R. SIMS. Soon after we had decided to add Mr. Sims’s figure to the Exhibition, Mrs. G. A. Sala happened to meet him, and questioned him as to the sensations he experienced in picturing himself as a waxen celebrity. “I feel very frightened indeed,” he promptly replied, “and more than that, exceedingly sorry that I ever promised to become a waxwork, for I have been told since that if the public grow weary of your presence, or the Tussauds get offended with you, they melt you down, and build up a more popular fellow out of your dripping. Nasty idea, very!” Mrs. Sala said it certainly _was_ a very nasty idea; but if there were any truth in the melting-down story, G. R. could enjoy the satisfaction of thinking that he might have arisen in his waxen grandeur from the “dripping” of someone less popular than himself. Mr. Sims said that so long as the public only stuck pins into him, or stamped on his toes, he did not mind; but he should feel it very much if they were to bang him about the head with an umbrella, or take him by the collar and shake him. It must have been in the early winter of the year 1891, while I was modelling him, that Mr. Sims had the following interesting and somewhat unpleasant experience, which he himself describes. He says: