One day I chanced to go to MacKennall’s studio when he was working on a wax of the head of King George V for the coinage. On a school-slate, standing up on a small easel, was a little grey wax head in relief, measuring three or four inches across. Smaller he would not work because of his eyes; from that plaque a machine would reduce the silhouette exactly to the size required for the coin. “Oh, the bother of this work,” he exclaimed. “Stamping one side of the coin often bumps out the other side in the wrong place, and all sorts of little annoyances like that constantly occur.” His love of Gilbert was very touching—and his admiration of Phil May was only equalled by his surprise at his becoming a Roman Catholic a week before his death. CHAPTER XV MORE PAINTERS, AND WHISTLER IN PARTICULAR James Mcneill Whistler was a foremost figure in the artistic world, and he always struck me as the most curiously satanic gentleman I ever saw. He cultivated an upward turn of his dark eyebrows, he waved his long, thin hands in a fantastic way, he shook his locks or passed his fingers through them in a manner all his own, and appeared not only a _poseur_ in art, but a _poseur_ in literature, and a _poseur_ among men. This probably added to his interest, for he certainly had a remarkable personality, and a better half-hour could not be spent than in his company. He was as cruel to his friends as to his enemies, as scathing in his remarks, and yet at times almost maudlin in his sentimentalism. It was quite delightful to hear him discuss his own work. His egotism was—well, it was his own. His sweeping assertions were a revelation. On my return from America in 1900 he told me that, “although an American himself, he should never visit that country again, as there was not an artistic soul to be found there.” And yet the purchasers of a host of his pictures and etchings were Americans, as were many of his best friends. One hesitates to tell any Whistler stories, there has been such an extraordinary output. Many are doubtless apocryphal. I recall one or two that I have heard from his own lips, or from the persons (often the victims) chiefly concerned in them. George Boughton, the painter, had a house on Campden Hill, designed by Mr. Norman Shaw, R.A., and five or six steps lead to the hall, as that eminent architect so often arranges. Whistler had been dining with Boughton one evening, and, as he was leaving, he did not notice the steps and fell down head first. The host was distracted and ran to pick him up. Whistler sat up on the bottom step. “What a d——d total abstainer you must have had for an architect, Boughton!” was all he said.