being a man of action as well as of word, I
started my "Artistic Joke." I was determined to keep the matter secret,
so I worked with my studio doors closed, and as each picture was
finished it was placed behind some heavy curtains, secure from
observation, and I kept my secret for three years, until the work was
complete.

I soon found that I had set myself a task of no little magnitude. Before
I could really make a start I had to examine each artist's work
thoroughly. I studied specimens of the work of each at various periods
of his or her career. I had to discover their mannerisms, their
idiosyncrasies and ideas, if they had any, their tricks of brushwork,
and all the technicalities of their art. Then I designed a picture
myself in imitation of each artist. In a very few instances only did I
parody an actual work. This fact was generally lost sight of by those
who visited the Exhibition. The public imagined that I simply took a
certain picture of a particular artist and burlesqued it. I did this
certainly in the case of Millais' "Cinderella" and one or two others;
but in the vast majority of the works exhibited, even in Marcus Stone's
"Rejected Addresses," which appeared to so many as if it must have been
a direct copy of some picture of his, the idea was entirely evolved out
of my own imagination. In thinking out the various pictures I devoted
the greatest care to accuracy of detail. I was particular as to the
shape of each, and even went so far as to obtain frames in keeping with
those used by the different artists. Of course it was out of the
question for me to do the pictures in colour, which would have required
a lifetime, and probably tempted me to break faith with my idea; not to
mention the fact that I should in that case most likely have sent the
collection to the Academy, of which obtuse body, if there is any justice
in it, I must then naturally have been elected a full-blown member.

[Illustration: THROWING MYSELF INTO IT.]

In order to get the Exhibition finished in time, I often had to work far
into the night, and on one occasion when I was thus secretly engaged in
my studio upon these large pictures until the small hours, I remember a
catastrophe very nearly happened which would have put a finishing touch
of a very different kind to that which I intended, not only to the
picture, but to the artist himself. It happened thus. About three
o'clock in the morning, long after the household had retired to res