Writing from the Langham Hotel, where he was staying, he observed that Madame Tussaud’s had previously voted him a niche among the immortal heroes who adorned their Exhibition, a mark of honour for which he was told he ought to feel no small pride. And what had Sergeant Bates accomplished? He claimed to have succeeded in bringing the two great nations’ hearts near to each other, till they seemed to beat in unison, and the pulsation of the one was for a while that of the other. “God grant,” he said, “that work so begun may not willingly be laid down.” Although he was called at one and the same time “a hare-brained visionary,” “a patriot,” “a fool,” “a man of courage,” and “a remarkably shrewd, thoughtful individual,” there can be no doubt that he did at least something to promote international amity, and to cement the feeling of warm friendship which was found to exist in this country towards her daughter America. The continuation of that tie has been, and is still being, abundantly manifested ever since the United States joined the Allies in their recent determined fight for freedom; and there are thousands who echo Sergeant Bates’s words: “May the flags of both countries ever wave in freedom and peace till that ‘far truer time’ when there shall be but one flag, because but one people on the face of the earth!” CHAPTER XXII My first model--Beaconsfield’s curl--Gladstone’s collar--John Bright and the Chinaman. We now come to a period when I may well speak of my own personal knowledge concerning men and events in association with Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition. The year 1872 was remarkable for several noteworthy events. Two or three, in addition to the National Thanksgiving Day for the recovery of the Prince of Wales from serious illness, vividly recur to memory. Among them was the assassination of the Earl of Mayo, Viceroy of India, who was stabbed by a convict while inspecting the settlement at Port Blair on the Andaman Islands. The models of the Prince of Wales and the murdered Viceroy were introduced to the Exhibition within a few days of each other, and the sympathetic public responded in great numbers. A startling and remarkable tribute to the Viceroy’s portrait was “unconsciously” paid when the Earl’s housekeeper fainted on suddenly finding herself in the presence of the model of her late master. The first portrait I was entrusted with, as my father’s understudy, was that of Prince Milan of Serbia, the memory of whom has long since passed into oblivion, like that of many others whose stay has been brief among the figures. This was followed by a head of perennial interest, that of Benjamin Disraeli, which I was called upon to remodel on several occasions in after years. Clearly do I recall his characteristic features, so marvellously grasped by Tenniel, whose cartoons in _Punch_ I never tired of studying.