The water-colour drawing of me was done in a couple of hours. (See page 161.) One summer day in 1903, I sat to John Lavery for a little sketch of my head, which that brilliantly clever artist painted in thirty minutes. I chanced to have sat next to him at dinner shortly before, and he had then exclaimed: “I would like to paint your head!” “You know how I hate sitting,” I replied. “But could you not spare me half an hour one afternoon just for the gratification of making a sketch of you? Once I have gained that satisfaction I will give you the picture.” This put a different complexion upon the matter, and accordingly one afternoon I went to his studio, near the South Kensington Museum, to be decapitated. That studio is probably the best proportioned in London. It was built by Sir Coutts Lindsay, and is almost square like a box. The high walls are covered with a sort of dull brown paper, and a few French chairs and bureaus are its only decoration. I sat down in one of these special chairs waiting for him to arrange his easel, when he exclaimed: “That will do, just sit as you are, and if you don’t mind I should like to take off my coat, as when I paint at high pressure it is hot work.” To this I assented, and in a moment he was hard at it. “Talk as much as you like,” he said. “Forget you are sitting; move your head or your arms as you wish, just simply think you are paying me a little call; never mind the rest.” All this sounded delightful. Then in a few minutes the speaking-tube whistled, and a message was called up to know if Mr. Cunninghame Graham might come up. “Do you object?” asked Mr. Lavery, “Because he knows you are sitting to me, and said he would like to come if he might.” “Not in the least,” I replied; “I should like it.” Cunninghame Graham in the capacity of chaperon was a novel experience. So up he came, and took a seat immediately behind the artist so that my eyes should not wander from the right direction for the picture. Was there ever a greater contrast than those two men? Lavery, short and broad, with ruddy cheeks, dark hair, and little, round, twinkling black eyes full of life and verve, and the calm aristocratic, artistic Cunninghame Graham, who always looks exactly like a Velasquez picture, so perfect is he in drawing and colouring. Mr. Lavery has a curious arrangement for his palette. There is a table at his right hand, upon which a palette slants as on a desk. It is about three feet by two in size, and can hold a large number of colours. [Illustration: HALF-HOUR SKETCH OF AUTHOR BY JOHN LAVERY, R. A. EXHIBITED FAIR WOMEN EXHIBITION, LONDON, 1910] “I require lots of paint and lots of room to splash about, and I like the table arrangement; it is, in fact, the only way I can work,” he remarked.