“Yes,” he replied. “There is a certain well-known lady whose husband has her painted every year by some artist. She is good-looking and this is his hobby. My turn came. I painted the picture. It was barely finished, and had to go to an exhibition while the paint was still wet. When I went on varnishing day I was surprised to see a curious green haze over the face just as when you stick your nose against a window-pane, and the skin appears green in hue. I did nothing at the time, but determined to make some little alteration when the exhibition closed. The portrait came home. I looked at it. Yes, there was still that strange green hue over it, so I began to take it out of the frame in order to touch it up. “Imagine my horror when I found that the canvas had stuck to the glass! and the more I lifted it, lumps of paint from the lady’s cheeks stuck to it. I did everything I could think of to get the two apart, ending by leaving the glass and losing my temper. “‘Oh,’ said an artist friend, ‘just break the glass, and you will find it will be easier to get the portrait away.’ “Accordingly, I broke the glass. Worse and worse! bits of the canvas broke too, and anything more deplorable than my poor lady with her torn canvas and bits of glass hanging to her nose cannot be imagined. The issue was critical. “I dared not tell her, for her husband had liked the picture, so I determined to copy it. For three solid months I painted every day at that copy. I never can copy anything, and that was my last attempt. The more I worked the worse it grew. I really was in despair. They kept bothering me for the return of the picture. The lady was abroad and could not sit again. They had paid me for a thing that was destroyed, and I was at my wits’ end. “One day the lady was announced. I felt in an agony. Then I thought, before confessing, I would have one desperate and final shot. I told her I wanted to make a slight alteration—would she sit? She amiably complied. I seized the copy; feverishly for a couple of hours I worked upon it, and then—all at once the long-lost likeness returned. I had got it. “The picture was sent home; her people were delighted with it, and it was not till long afterwards that I told them the awful episode, by which I had at least painted half a dozen portraits of that lady.” Live and learn. Education is one constant enquiry, and knowledge is but an assimilation of replies. [Illustration: WATER-COLOUR SKETCH BY PERCY ANDERSON] FOOTNOTES: [6] Since reproduced in a volume, _Herbert Schmalz and his Work_. CHAPTER XIV ON SCULPTORS AND MODELLING Few experiences are more interesting than sitting for a bust. There is something enthralling in seeing great lumps of clay flung about in a promiscuous manner, and then gently modelled with finger and thumb into nose, eyes, and ears. I had the privilege of sitting, in 1910, to Herbert Hampton, verily a privilege, for not only is he a sculptor of note, but also a charming personality.