It is, of course, quite natural that many celebrities who pay a visit to the Exhibition, well knowing that their likenesses, have a place within it, are not escorted round the galleries. For the most part, coyly and shyly they seek out their own models, and, more often than not, approach them with a concern born of a too-studied indifference that is sometimes extremely amusing. “Bobs” was not of that order; he was a notable exception to the general rule. “Where’s my figure?” he asked plump and plain, and around it he stepped, quizzically examining it from various points of view. When he had satisfied himself that it was a fairly true representation, he ejaculated, “Not at all bad! Not at all bad!” and walked off to inspect the relics of the great Napoleon. Lord Roberts’s figure had been installed soon after his famous march from Kabul to Khandahar in the Afghan War. CHAPTER XXVIII My favourite portrait--Lord Tennyson poses unconsciously before my wife--“This beats Tussaud’s”--Sir Richard Burton--His widow clothes the model. Of all the portraits of my own modelling, I think, if I may be permitted to express an opinion, I like that of Lord Tennyson as well as any. It revives pleasant memories, and I will ask my readers if I may bring my wife into this part of my story. By a coincidence, as I raised my eyes at this moment, my glance fell upon a bust of Tennyson resting on a shelf in my studio. [Illustration: HEAD OF LORD TENNYSON (POET LAUREATE 1850-1892) The bust modeled by John T. Tussaud, first exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, in 1892, now in the Tussaud collection.] About the time when I was engaged with the model of the great Victorian poet I had rented a farm cottage near Freshwater, Isle of Wight, and I remember my wife telling me that she frequently saw Tennyson in the neighbourhood. On several occasions the poet, who lived at Farringford, near by, while taking his daily constitutional, came and leant upon the garden gate, evidently charmed with the beauty of the place. The old thatched roof and the quaint attractiveness of the cottage might well have given rise to reflections in less imaginative minds than that of a poet. I had not the opportunity of studying Tennyson’s features at that time; but my wife, coyly hidden in a favourite spot in the garden, was able to observe him closely. Being herself an artist of no mean ability, she thus afforded me considerable help in the production of his portrait. It seems strange that perhaps the most reclusive of men should have unwittingly come forward and posed, as it were, at the very door of the artist who was then desirous of obtaining sittings.